I jumped on the Dream Big Bandwagon…

If any one follows  the quilting sites I’m sure you have seen the Hoffman Dream Big Panel..  It is a great digitized panel that comes in various colors.  Its great for those who would like to practice Free Motion Quilting…

On my way down to Calgary for the Sue Carlson Talk and trunk show I stopped at the quilt shop in  Windfield  “Country Stitches”  I had heard many good things about this quilt shop.. if your ever traveling near it  is worth a swing into this small hamlet to check out this quilt store.  She had many of the dream big colors and I chose the Ivory one to practice on… The panel comes in 42×42 and if you have notice its not often that I make quilts that are small.   So I looked for ways to expand its size.. After much research I found a free patter by Hoffman on the  eQuilter site…

I started with the panel and called the shop back to send me a 2nd panel so I could do this… I cant believe the fast service I received the panel in 2 days…

I just continued on expanding the panel using my eq8 program so that the quilt would end up around 90″ x 90″.  I used a beautiful quilted panel picture from the internet that Kelly had made as the center in my program  to help me visualize how my borders would look.

I started this before Easter.. then took a break from it while I renovated my sewing room… this was the 1st project that I finished in my new sewing room.. here it is on the design wall before I quitted it.

I had a lot of fun quilting this  I started with my top borders. I used arc rulers then filled in the shapes with Free motion Quilting.   As I was quilting I had a helper… Not really as I had to watch he kept chasing my needle as I quilted.

Wanting to start in the center of the panel I used Lories way to load and baste the quilt so that I could work from the center our… this worked well.. here is the link to Loading Lories Way on UTube  /

Once I was in the middle I used ruler to do the center then I outlined the petals and ran a 2nd outline to give it some separation…then filled in the petals as I went with Free motion feathers.. I do not use marking pens it is all done winging it.  I worked to quilt it from center out and up then center out and down.. I did not finish the side borders till after the bottom border was finished and I turned the quilt to work horizontally to do the sides.  Here are pictures of my quilting. and finished quilt.. You can click on pictures to make them larger.

this is the front and back of the full quilt I used flannel for the back.  I actually love the back and it has prompted me to make a whole cloth quilt in the future.