Sunday, December 29, 2013

The DMC Crazy Quilt Commission: Part 4, Finished!

All done it is, and ready to be mailed to DMC USA in New Jersey....
What a lovely project it has been!

Where we last left off, I was going to add the outer vine and flowers to the wall-hanging...

I've repeated the Memory Thread couched vine element, but this time using three strands instead of just one in the first vine, two strands in a second one.  I pinned them into place and then couched them down using clear monofilament thread.
The flowers and velvet leaves pretty much arranged themselves, along with some vintage glass flower beads.

Here they are twining around Jean-Luc and Michael...

...and my beloved Notre Dame....(thanks again to Jerry Everard for this wonderful photo).....

...they surround my sister Mary....

....and me.

To finish the quilt I made and executive decision: No batting!
Wanting it to hang very, very straight, I gave the quilt the body it needed by interfacing the back of the embroidered and embellished top not once, but twice.

This is how the back looked before the first layer of overall interfacing.  You might notice that the center section was already interfaced once, for the crazy quilt stitching work.

Here is the backing after the first layer of overall interfacing was fused on; I gave it a second layer, too.
The results were very successful, in my opinion!  Because this quilt is small, about 30" X 30", and because the top is so incredibly stable, I also decided that the assembly of front to back could be accomplished solely by stitching the layers together around the perimeter, and then adding the binding.

The binding is actually the same vintage red velvet ribon used to frame some of the photographs.  Everyone knows, I love ribbon binding.

That outer border trim is so quintessentially French.  And it is from the 1920's!

Finally, the quilt back...

I attached the sleeve to the backing before sewing the back to the front, and this saved me a lot of time.  The binding covered the top edge of it.  That glittery trim along the bottom edge of the sleeve is from shopping in Montmartre.....

Always, every quilt must have a label.  This one has the graphic DMC used to promote the contest that led to my glorious adventure with my sister in France...

And now 2014 is soon upon us.  What awaits us in the new year?  Happy Stitching for all, I hope!












9 comments :

Anonymous said...

Beautiful work, thanks for sharing the process from start to finish!

Rebecca Grace said...

Ooh, it's beautiful, Allie! They will love it at DMC.

Annette-California said...

Oh Allie! You out did yourself. Absolutely Gorgeous. Congratulations on a stunning finish. Thank you sharing your work while you created a incredible tribute of your trip to Paris with DMC. love Annette

Quiltgal said...

Ooooh la la!

kerrykatiecakes2 said...

So beautiful! You did an outstanding job on this!

Monica said...

It's just fantastic, Allie! I love all the rich colours, and the red velvet ribbons!

What's next indeed? I imagine you must be feeling a bit of a gap after all the excitement of the trip and the commission. A banner year!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations Allie, you captured the essence of your trip in this one amazing Quilt. Someday someone will study this work of art ,just as we did all the amzing things in the DMC Archives ! Love, Louise

Suztats said...

Fantastic finish, Allie!! Love that red ribbon, too.

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