The Black Quilt

Anyone want to name this quilt? I have the hardest time coming up with names. Here it is, still covered in lint and threads but I looked outside and realized the lighting was maybe the best I can get in hopes of the stitching showing up. This quilt is 75 x 75 and I used a little over 6,000 yards of black thread with all the microstippling. I had originally wanted to use some variegated thread and had the perfect cone but it just didn't work out that I could use it. All of the feathers were the type where I have to backtrack and that wouldn't work very well with variegated thread. I thought about doing the microstippling with a very dark gray thread, almost black but it would have caused the background to be just a little lighter than the feathers and thus, the feathers would have shown up better. But, I really didn't think that would add to this quilt. I was afraid that by graying the black, the lavender and lime fabrics might look muted. So, I spent a week doing quilting that barely shows up! Oh well, what else would I have been doing? :) The black is the Amish Black from Keepsake but I think I will stick with the Michael Miller Jet Black from now on. The remainder of the fabrics are batiks. Every square inch of this fabric (except the backing) came from the stash. Here are a couple of other photos. Please excuse the fuzz, thread, lint and dog hair that might show up. I will clean it up before submitting any pictures for shows or contests. I still have to do the handwork so there's no use worrying about cleaning it til I'm finished with all that. This is a closeup of one of the center blocks. Four of these blocks make up the center. I did "stones" in the black area of the center, then did the stones in the longer lavender points. This was another area I hadn't planned on quilting but these points wanted to poof. Then the outer part of the points (purple/turquoise part) needed something. I was pretty much out of ideas at this point so I did just some measured straight lines using a purple/turquoise variegated thread. Next picture shows the feather motif that is in the inner border. This is a feather stencil by Pepper Cory (PC1841 from Stensource). This was the first time I've used this stencil and I loved it. I really like the long, slender, curvey feathers. I had not intended to do any stitching in the lime and lavender borders but when all the rest of the quilt is so heavily quilted, even the smallest area left unquilted will seem to poof and look empty. When I see a quilt that has this type area, I find that my eye goes to the poofy, unquilted area first and that takes away from the rest of the quilting. So, I did the stones in the black narrow area, then did half feathers in the lime and lavender strips. This picture shows the very outer border. The stencil used is a Judy Allen feather (GT-JA3 from Golden Threads). I added the "stones" in the center because I also have those several other places in the quilt and figured that helped bring it all together. This stencil was a fun one. So, now you know why my family had sandwiches all week last week! Judy L.