The Goldfinch 30″ x 40″
This one was less than 6 months from start to finish. I found the Goldfinch pattern at LegitKits.com after seeing the company at a quilt show in February. After seeing the patterns I couldn’t stop thinking about them so the next week I jumped online and picked out the Goldfinch to try. Most people buy these at full kits with solid Kona fabrics provided. I decided to make mine with hand dyed fabrics.
Just picking the fabrics took a long weekend to accomplish but it was a fun and satisfying project.
The quilt is all foundation pieced and there are lots of little pieces and sections.
The quilt is made from 16 7.5″ x 10″ blocks and each block is made of a lot of little sections.
This block in the lower right corner took the longest time to piece.
The quilting was a bit of a challenge because these patterns are designed with a lot of seams meeting at some points. I searched online to see how other people had quilted quilts from this company to get some ideas. I wasn’t inspired by what I saw. Most people really avoided the thick intersections and the resulting effect was a pronounced puffy lump in those areas. I decided that I wanted my quilt to be very flat and have more of a tapestry effect and hang very flat on the wall. I decided to try denim as the “batting” and I’m really happy with the way it turned out. I washed and dried it twice to shrink it and it quilted so easily.
Within the bird and foliage, I quilted straight lines adjacent to the seams (to avoid some of the bulk). I just wanted to do enough to stabilize the quilt. I was not trying to add any additional design elements so that the fabrics and piecing take center stage.
The background was kind of a vast space so I decided to add a graphic leaf motif to frame the Goldfinch.
