Basket full of wishes

Hi, welcome to Lakumuki if it is your first time visiting here ( ' v ' )
It is exciting to be part of Blogger's quilt festival with my quilt "Basket full of wishes". It is a wedding present for a friend. I've been working on this quilt for almost a year and only just finished it.

 My idea was to fill the baskets with special treats for the bride and groom while creating a fun story around each basket block. I hope this quilt will bring lots of smiles and happiness to the newly married couple.

After piecing the basket blocks, I added layers of little pieces to them using Machine Appliqué technique. I took my time to play around with various arrangements for each basket. Often times when I felt a basket is missing something, I put it aside and moved on to the next block. Later I would come across a cute mouse or a curious bug lurking among the fabrics and I would go back to fill those gaps. It's been a slow process but a very satisfying one.

I posted a tutorial here detailing the steps I followed. It is really fun and easy to do if you like to try :)

When putting the quilt top together, I alternated the baskets with a plain block and arranged them in a diagonal setting. The white space surrounding the baskets was like a blank canvas inviting me to add little flowers, flying birds, hearts, music notes, colorful balloons.. anything I could think of to make the quilt more cheerful and lively. I had lot of fun thinking about what kind of text to add next to the critters to give them unique personalities.

There are 42 baskets in this quilt each one telling a story of its own. If you like to take a closer look at individual baskets, please visit my Flickr or earlier blog posts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, borders.

The quilt was too big to machine quilt at home, so I contemplated hand quilting it. But I couldn't wait too long to finish it as this quilt has been eagerly waiting to go to it's new home. Then I came to know about Emily @ Emerson quilting through Tamiko's blog. Emily did an amazing job with the quilt and finished it in a very short time!

I suggested simple crisscrossing lines with soft curves to give it a feeling of sweet dream or a soft breeze. I also requested for a batting with thin loft. Emily quilted around the appliqué pieces to make them more noticeable. It looks very organic and clean like I was envisioning. Emily is incredibly creative and dedicated. I am so thankful to her for the efforts and thought she has put into this quilt. She shares a sampling of her gorgeous work on her blog.

For binding, I picked this cute Minny muu print by Lecien. It has tiny mice scampering around with cheese! I love that this shade of green gives a freshness to the quilt and also ties in with the theme of treats!

And for the backing I felt this bold and whimsical yellow print provides a good contrast to the delicateness of the front while adding some weight to the sea of white in the quilt.

I chose fabrics from Apple Pie collection by Sandy Klop for the baskets and backing, as my friend loves bright sunshiny colors. They suit her perfectly! It is an older collection by Moda from four years ago.

Quilt Festival stats:

Quilt size is 93" * 108"
Special Techniques used: Machine appliqué
Quilted by Emily Sessions

We took these pictures at Arnold Arboretum in Boston like most of my other quilt pictures. It is a breathtakingly beautiful landscape to visit if you are ever in town ( * u * )

Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my quilt! I enjoyed going back in time to share my experience of making of this quilt with you.
Also a huge Thank you to Amy for this wonderful opportunity to see so many beautiful quilts!!

Have a great weekend!

basket full of wishes - borders

I hope you had a gorgeous fall weekend! After a week of rain and clouds, weather was perfect here, so we went for a walk along Charles River to soak in the colors. I also made this Pumpkin Stew after a long time. I guess shades of yellows and oranges sum up our weekend!

I finished putting binding on the Basket quilt and we took some pictures in the Arboretum. I have few miscellaneous blocks left to share with you but for a change I will show you borders today ( ' v ' )

I planned two borders for the quilt. A pieced inner border of triangles to echo the shapes in the basket and a plain border on the outside to create more happy scenes with appliqué. 

  

I prepared a template which is slightly smaller than the triangles I used in Basket handles. This template also helped me in fussy cutting interesting prints for this border. There are Chocolate wrappers, small baskets, kitchen objects, fruits & veggies, cute bunnies, text prints,  flowers and polka dots. It will be fun for our friends to discover something new every time they look at the quilt.

I wasn't too worried about this border not being a perfect fit in the corners as I was going to mask any irregularities with appliqué pieces like you see in this above picture. I covered a misfit triangle with these mushrooms ;)

 I had to stitch the applique' pieces by hand as it proved difficult to turn the quilt top freely to machine appliqué them. But I was careful to press the pieces on a fusible before attaching them to the border to avoid any fraying later.

( a French chef ready to prepare Sunday brunch & Ironing on a Friday )

This is a funny scene I added on the top. Wife is getting ready to go for shopping with her friends and is in her dreamy world oblivious to her husband cleaning the house. Husband is not very happy about it but on the outside he is praising his wife on looking so pretty! ( I have this dreamy feeling too when I go for fabric shopping. And I get the same expression from Kalyan like this guy here ;)

Like this "Spoon & Fork", and "Cup & Saucer" our friends are made for each other and are so perfect together!! We wish them all the happiness in the world!

There are few more scenes in this border but I didn't take good close-up shots of them. I hope they will show up well when I post pictures of the whole quilt next week.
Enjoy a lovely evening! ( " v " )

basket full of wishes - part 5

Being a Chocolate lover it was like a dream to plan for these Chocolate baskets. I wish I could fill the whole quilt with them. These cute candy makers have been working hard to come up with delicate creamy confections. They are all neatly wrapped and tied in pretty bows, ready for our enjoyment.

Please come in for a cup of hot-chocolate and some serious Chocolate tasting ( ' v ' )

I thought we could indulge in some knitting too as winter is approaching and new woolens to wear would be nice :)

My friend's mom used to knit beautiful sweaters for everyone in the family. 

She loved this block as they have many fond memories of their mom knitting for them, probably with a basket just like this sitting next to her.

mm... Truffles! Almond coconut, Honey Hazelnut, Chocolate Rasberry, Tangerine rose.. 

pick your favorite :)

Not a happy sight for this poor chef! Chocolate attracts naughty kids & puppies and even a trail of hungry ants..

Love is in the air!

Boy : on a date today? 

Girl: I am your fan!

Both the bride and groom adore Chocolate as much as I do. I imagined their secret wish must be sitting in this Chocolate heaven enjoying until the last bite disappears into their tummy! :)

Have a sweet day!!!