Ann Champion's Blog

At long last…the Princess Feather quilt is done! I started basting it for quilting on March 1..here we are 10 weeks later and it’s complete.

This quilt took quite a bit of time. The applique took 474 hours, the marking and basting 14 hours, the hand quilting 496 hours, and the binding 10.5 hours. A grand total of 994.5 hours.  It measures 93″ x 93″.

The quilting was done with quartered feathered wreaths at each corner of the large blocks and diagonal lines .75″ across the rest of the design. In the center where the 4 blocks meet the wreath is complete, and I stitched around all of the appliqued bits.
I couldn’t get the quilting to show up in the pics very well, so I took a pics of the back side in hopes it would show better.

I used a white cotton sateen weave sheet for the back and it quilted like butter. It feels so soft and smooth too. I’m very happy with that decision.

For the batting I chose Fairfield’s cotton/bamboo blend. It wasn’t cheap, but I thought it sounded like a good choice when I read the package.  It’s a 50/50 blend using organic cotton and bamboo which is naturally antibacterial.

The package says the blend is luxuriously soft and supple with excellent loft. It says it has great breathe ability, wicks moisture from the body, keeping you cool in the warmer climates while providing an insulation of warmth in cooler climates.
Both cotton and bamboo are renewable resources and green manufacturing processes are used in the batting’s production.
OK..so I’ve devoted quite a bit of space telling about this batting..do I like it?
It was pretty easy to needle so the quilting went smoothly, BUT I kept seeing little fuzz balls on the quilt as I worked.
I don’t know if you can see it, but there’s a little fuzz on the blue fabrics? I wasn’t overly concerned because I quilt in a hoop. I had quite a bit of batting hanging out at the edges and the quilt got repositioned quite a bit.   I thought it was fuzz being transferred from the edges and once the quilt was finished and bound it would be fine.

Once the quilt was finished I spread it out on the bed and wiped across it with a damp sponge to remove the fuzz and lint. The batting appeared to be bearding. Bearding is when the batting fibers migrate out of the quilt. We don’t want that!

I spent quite a bit of time going over the quilt and it looks OK for now, but it was bearding through the appliques as well as the background fabric.  These are high quality fabrics with a nice weave, so the batting shouldn’t be coming through them.  I don’t think I’ll be using this wonder batting again! It cost quite a bit more than the other batting options and  IMO it ruined my quilt.

Have you used the bamboo batting? What has your experience been with it?

I enjoyed making this quilt. The fabrics were very different from my usual and they were cheerful to work with. Kim’s pattern was fun to do!

EDIT: Several people wanted to know how I keep a record of my hours. Each quilt I make has a sheet of paper on which I record the cost of materials, source of the pattern,type of batting, and hours spent on each aspect of the quilt making process.
When I’m ready to work on the quilt I look at the clock and when I stop I look again and mark down my hours.
I find that my worksheets give me a good idea of how long a similar project might take, and help me place a value on the finished quilt.