Megan's Beautiful Hand Applique

Isn't this one stunning???? (You may want to grab some coffee--lots of photos coming up!) And for those of you who are looking closely, yes this is a photo of the unquilted top.  It was the best one I had that really showed the colors and the amount of work that Megan put into it.

Megan and I seem to have started a pattern of collaborating every other year. She certainly does the hard work though. All that hand applique...amazing!  Here are a couple of shots that show the blocks

I wanted to highlight the applique on this one and I had three separate areas to do that. I combined three quilting designs in the backgroud to highlight the applique and still bring all three sections together.  If you look at the first picture, you see the outside border with the hearts (area 1) the inner border with the sashing frame (area 2) and then the center with another sashing frame (area 3). I stippled in the outer sashing and then did both horizontal and vertical lines in the center.

 

The outer border was a challenge and didn't get quilted until I'd finished the inside. I knew I wanted more linework and feathers, but I wasn't sure how I wanted them. The difficulty was the hearts--the corner hearts were a different size.  I ended up filling the corner hearts with feathers and then only doing feathers on two of the larger hearts in the border.  I know it doesn't show, but in the top and bottom border, I did feathers in the center two hearts--on the sides, I did them in the outside. Then I filled in with lines.

A corner heart...

Below are just some close-ups to show off Megan's beautiful work. I quilted in some of the applique, but not all.  I wanted it to have a 3D effect. 

The back was this fabric which had a bit too much going on to really show the quilting. However, I thought this block looked neat on the back.

This quilt was in a show this last weekend. I'm waiting to hear how it did. Its stunning in person!

Dory