Aviary Birdbath Finish

The alternate title for this post is Things We Would Only Do For Our Mothers.

I finally got the Aviary Birdbath Quilt finished and I'm so happy with how it turned out. This is one mammoth quilt!

Back in February my mother asked me to make her a King size quilt.  She selected the Birdbath pattern from The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman. And we both love Aviary 2 from Joel Dewberry.  Her other request - "as much white as possible". She's a Floridian now. 

So since the Birdbath pattern was really for a lap quilt, I decided to expand it to cover the top of the bed and then the draping on the sides is white.  I managed to get a quick photo on my bed to show how it lays. This was fast and sloppy as a 3 yr old was circling me yelling that she didn't want pictures.

The final dimensions are 92" x 105".  Now let me first say, I really like Elizabeth Hartman's book. Her directions are great and well photographed. But this pattern should definitely be lap sized! Each block is very time consuming because each step requires that the block be squared off. Otherwise you get some lopsided blocks. In the end I made 72 of those blocks. I also had a spreadsheet going so I could keep track of which fabric combinations I used.

There was no way I was going to be able to quilt this bad boy myself so I sent it to my wonderful quilter Margaret and challenged her with those giant borders! We wound up deciding on an overall pantograph for the center and Margaret designed a really cool custom design for the border.

Since King size isn't square the borders on 2 sides are even wider.

I love it, I think it's very Florida.  Reminds me of water and palm leaves.

Above is the quilting on the back so you can see the overall design that's on the back. And let me just tell you, I really had to mess with this photo to get this to show up so nicely! The quilt is really white with white thread, it's just my photo editing that makes it look all gray.

I had some extra blocks so I pieced those on the back with my label.

I just need to write my final info on the label and wash it! To be honest, I'm terrified to wash this one. I may throw an entire box of Color Catchers in there. There is so much contrast I'm afraid it will come out gray.

Quilt stats:

Size: 92" x 105"

Pattern: Birdbath - Elizabeth Hartman

Fabrics: Aviary 2 by Joel Dewberry and KonaWhite

Quilted: by Mainely Quilts of Love

Finished: 11/27/11