Merry & Bright Wrap Progress

Merry & Bright Border
Merry & Bright Border

TFQ came to stay last weekend. She and I wedged a visit in even though we had a family event in the middle of her visit. One of the things *I* like to do when she is here is get her opinion about my various projects. Often I get stuck and need to move forward but seem to be unable to make any decisions. I can ask any quiltmaker I know, but TFQ knows me well enough not to suggest something completely stupid. She also often prevents me from doing something stupid because I am just tired of the project.

One of the things we worked on was the border of the It’s a Merry & Bright Wrap. I didn’t really work very hard at finding a border by myself, to be honest. I was glad, because what was in my head was not what I ultimately went with.

Possible color combo
Possible color combo
Possible color combo #2
Possible color combo #2

We auditioned a couple of color combos, including my idea, which included a white dotted inner border (no photo, sorry). I had a lot of that fabric and wanted to use it, but it was too stark as white often can be.

TFQ suggested yellow. We looked through a number of yellow fabrics until we found one that fit well with the yellow from the Merry & Bright Jelly Roll. I found the blues and yellows in this group to be off the beaten path. Interesting, but different than what I have in the fabric closet. The yellow we went with is an older commercial print and not part of that group.

I was pretty interested in using a blue/teal/turquoise color. I found the tone-on-tone in my fabric closet (left photo), but we both felt the quilt needed a bit more pattern. I liked the idea of bringing out the blues, but, since I didn’t have any large pieces of blue from the group and nothing I had was the right tone and I didn’t like the idea of having to buy and wash new fabric I used the green. I happened to see some half yards at Rainbow Resource at the EBHQ show, so I had enough.

Truthfully, we didn’t agonize too much over the colors. We did the Lorraine Torrence thing of making visual decisions visually, we picked and then I sewed them on the next night.

I used the new walking foot to sew the borders on and they are flat and I had not problems. The quilt is now ready for a back and to be quilted. My finishing seems to come in clusters!

I will probably use red for the back, since I have plenty. I don’t know if I will longarm this quilt or send it out. We’ll see.