Catenary quilt: A finish!

I have several finishes to document in the coming days, so get ready! It seems like I don't have much time to document my works-in-progress right now, and before you know it, it's all finishes. Alas. We do what we can. Anyway, the finish for today is my long-awaited Catenary quilt!

I began this quilt back in September when I was lucky enough to get to take a workshop with Carolyn Friedlander. The workshop revolved around Carolyn's Catenary pattern and learning her technique for needle-turn applique, and as soon as I started, I was hooked. I'd never been a hand sewer before, but I liked the idea of hand sewing and its portability. Still, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the process, and while this quilt took me months to finish, I loved every minute of it.

The fabrics are almost all from Carolyn's past collections, including Doe, Architextures, and Botanics. That print with the potted plant you can see below was from Crimson Tate's Succulents line.

For the backing, I found this perfect brick print in my stash and then added a bright pop of orange to bring it to the size I needed. (Seems I've had that orange in my stash for a very long time.) I added fabric corners on the back because my hubby plans to use this as a wall hanging in his office (it coordinates nicely with his Austin House quilt). The final quilt (slightly modified from the pattern) measures 26" wide x 27" tall.

Part of the delay in finishing this one up was due to the fact that I couldn't decide how to quilt it. Since this was my first finished needle-turn applique quilt, I really liked the idea of doing some hand quilting, but that would have been another first for me, and I was having trouble committing. In the end, I went with randomly spaced vertical lines, which mimic the lines in the ledger print on the top row, and I'm very happy with the result. I didn't want the quilting to be too dense because I thought it would take away from the "puffiness" of the applique.

On the whole, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and so glad to have discovered this new love for hand applique. I'm getting really close to finishing up my current applique project, the Ebb quilt pillows. With family in town this weekend, it might be just over the horizon.