jannimary: I’m Swooning Over My Swoon Quilt

This quilt has been in the pipe line for a very long time.

Camille Roskelly released the Swoon Quilt pattern back in May 2011. It kind of went viral, along with the various Bonnie and Camille fabric ranges. I really liked it all and wanted to jump on the bandwagon.

Fast foward to January 2015. I participated in a fat quarter swap and the fabrics I requested were, not surprisingly, Bonnie and Camille, with the Swoon Quilt in mind. I received a variety from different ranges, but they all went well together. I just had to add a couple more to make up numbers.

There were quite a few designs that were striped or directional and I didn’t want those fabrics to look broken up or going in different directions, so I tweaked the block pattern to suit the fabrics. It turned out well.

Then, it all sat and waited. I couldn’t decide what fabric to use for the background. Procrastination at its finest. Eventually, I found the one I used. Not a solid white or grey, but with a nice low volume pattern.

I finally made a start in December 2021. Then, I made blocks on and off during 2022, finally completing the quilt top in January 2023. I even worked on it at Scrub Stitchin’ in 2022. You can read about the progress here, here, here and here.

While piecing the blocks, I had stitched extra half square triangles. After the top was completed I even started to use those offcuts to start a Leader and Ender project. Sadly, it hasn’t really progressed from this state. I will get back to it one day.

Originally, I had considered using the Quilt as You Go method to construct the quilt. However, after purchasing Monique I changed my plans and intended to quilt it “once I was good enough”. Another that remained in the “To Be Quilted Queue”.

Now that I am comfortable using Elly May, it was time to finally finish this quilt. The question was what design to use? Having looked at lots of Swoon Quilts on line there ares some stunning custom quilted versions using rulers and free motion. Very, very nice, but not going to happen on this one. I just want to finally get this quilt finished and be able to put it on our bed. There were versions with swirls, florals and feathers, but none of them really grabbed me. If not being custom quilted, I felt it needed movement, but the blocks need to be the stars of the show, not the quilting.

Therefore, once again, I chose to use the Baptist Fan design, which creates a nice texture, with curves to counteract the straight lines, without dominating the quilt. I’m really happy with how it turned out.