I am done!! My Whole Lotta Love Quilt is finished. Working with Art Gallery Fabrics was a joy. The quality of their fabric is wonderful. It is softer than most quilting fabrics and lighter, too. It is almost like a lawn.

Quilting the Whole Lotta Love Quilt

Something that I did that was different with this quilt than all of my other quilts, was what I choose for batting. Usually I use a polyester blend of batting with a medium loft. However, Stephanie from Modern Sewciety always talks about how she loves cotton and her trick is that she doubles the batting. I don’t like how cotton batting is so thin. I mean, it can be next to nothing. But I have gone to the total opposite end of the spectrum and used a loft that was too high. The quilt that I did that on was the quilt I made for my husband, my Day of the Dead quilt. My preference is something in the middle. I decided to give this strange concept of doubling up a try, and I used the cotton batting.

I really like how it turned out. The fabric is super soft, the quilt has wonderful weight and it has body, fluff. I decided to quilt it myself. Why? Why did I make this crazy decision? A question I asked myself for many hours as I quilted my Whole Lotta Love Quilt with a long arm.  Because I knew that stitching over the heart (top) points would become an issue. I knew that an all over pattern would stitch over the excess fabric layers in these areas and that might cause thread breakage and broken needles. So I quilted careless lines and a few arrows. The concept of the pattern is something I was very excited about, but I don’t love how it turned out. I used a light grip on the long arm thinking that would create organic lines, but they looked like errors. At the end I used a firmer grip and a more decisive direction; I prefer the way those lines turned out.

The Quilt Back

The back of the quilt is where I used all of my scraps Piecing them together with only a little bit of structure. I always allow myself to go crazy on the back. Quilting as I go and making it flow. I am very happy with how that back turned out and now I can add this Whole Lotta Love Quilt to my Quilt Back Gallery.

I have some fun plans for the next few months: a new pattern for sale, a free downloadable pattern, a tutorial, an informative post and a few quick projects. Let’s hope I get to them all!

– Elisabeth DeMoo – Happy Quilting!!

Photos were taken at the Tucson Botanical Gardens.