Aurifil Artisan Challenge: September 2020

Hi there! Today I'm sharing my latest creation as an Aurifil Artisan!

I received two yards of Windham Fabrics Artisan Cotton in Wine Pink for this whole quilt challenge. Normally I stay away from the purples and reds, but I found this fuchsia to be appealing. I've also never sewn with Windham's shot cottons, and I was pleasantly surprised with the weight and feel of it.

I split the two yards into two one yard cuts to start. Then, I trimmed a little bit off from the cuts to save for binding. On the remaining quilt sandwich, I drew a randomized grid. I then filled in the various sections horizontally and vertically, with the goal of a 50/50 split between hand and machine quilting. Another thing I decided at this point was to skip pivoting (or turns) on my domestic machine for a parallel line effect, which meant a lot of thread bury work!

My original plan was to mix longarm quilting and hand quilting, but I shifted to use my domestic machine for the quilting after I decided on the design. Because I had originally planned for longarm quilting, I had received Aurifil forty3 because it works great on longarms (forty3 is a 3-ply 40 weight thread), and I'm happy to say it behaves as well on my domestic machine! The front of my quilt shows forty3 and 12 weight thread in pale yellow, and the other side has forty3 (from the bobbin) in white and the hand quilted 12 weight in pale yellow.

I finished the quilt with binding – machine stitching the front and hand stitching/binding on the back via Aurifil 80wt thread. I'm really happy with how it turned out and it's the perfect size to place over my legs in the morning as temperatures fluctuate at my desk. My kids were happy to "help" on some final photos!