Neitherlands Quilt

 

In 2019, my mom and I attended QuiltCon in Nashville and took the Mystery Quilt Workshop with Jen Carlton Bailly (aka @bettycrockerass). We got copies of two of Jen's new patterns at the time, Find Your Fade and Neitherlands, a big set of curvy templates in various sizes, and the choice of patterns to work on in the workshop. We both decided to make a Neitherlands block, and I finished one during our time with Jen. I made one more block when I returned home, but then I packed the project away and put it on a shelf ... until last fall. I pulled the project box out again, grabbed some fabric, miscut that fabric as I knew I would (the templates and pattern are a little tricky to sort out when you haven't worked on it in a while) and then found my groove.

I had a lot of fun raiding my fabric stash to find prints that would work together and still provide the contrast necessary to get the full visual effect of the curved piecing. The dark centers are Peppered Cottons, which are yarn-dyed shot cottons, so they're not quite gray and not quite black.

The three blocks that make up this pattern all have different curves, so I got a lot of practice. I love cutting curved templates, but sewing them up can be tedious, so I had to tackle these in batches. I loved the results, though, so that helped motivate me to get each block assembled.

At almost 60x60 inches, this quilt was too big for me to want to quilt on my own, so I took it to my favorite local longarmer. I don't plan to keep this quilt for myself, so I was willing to try a pantograph that's a little wilder and more unusual than what I'm usually drawn to. This is Time Warp by Urban Elementz, and I love how the quilting curves play with the pieced curves, and the lines give the quilt amazing texture.

The backing, one of Anna Maria Horner's Echinacea prints, was destashed by a guild friend of mine, and I thought it was just perfect for this quilt that's already a riot of color and print. I did some print matching along the back seam, and it turned out really well. I couldn't decide what to use for binding until I found this pink print in my stash. The lines running across it have made it difficult for me to use in other projects, so I guess it was meant to be binding!