Grand Illusion Off The Wall

And something else up on it!

You've seen this one before in a much better photo.  But I took this one with the Ipod so my apologies.  I've been busy sewing Grand Illusion blocks and it's all rather boring and messy with nothing much to show you yet, so I thought I'd put the next 'I'm Mulling It Over' quilt on the wall.

As with most of my quilts, this one started as a vague idea - a new quilt for our queen sized bed.  And it was all going along swimmingly, with no real design happening except that it needed to fit our bed.

It's made to the step above, give or take a bit of hand applique.  Then, like with many of my quilts, it all got a big complicated.

It needs to be queensized, so it needs great big whopping borders.  The plan for this one was to have the cream borders all around (forgive the truly horrendous creases - these have literally just come out of a shopping bag - no ironing here! and then much of the same as the pieced border that would sit nicely along the outer edge of our bed, before it drapes over the sides (if you follow me).

Problem that I have is that it's too busy a quilt for our bed and the design gets lost on it. But it looks so lovely up on a wall that I've decided I shall continue it on as a quilt to hang behind the bed, rather than on it.

Buuuuuuuut.  It's not big enough yet, so I need to add more stuff.  And there in lies the 'hmmmm....what next?'.  I'm definitely thinking of more of the same with the applique.  I have so much time (cough cough) that intricate applique is just what I need to do.  But to not do it would be doing this quilt a disservice.  Because I have to tell you, I really, really love this one.

Part of my problem also is that this fabric is slightly limited.  It came from my mother in law when she briefly took up quilting twenty years ago.  So it's all that twenty year old fabric that just isn't around anymore (oh how I wish it was!).  It's rich and glorious and will suit my room perfectly if I can only get the darn thing finished!

I guess the only way to finish it is to start.  I'm going to cut out some of those flowers, maybe a pot or two and have them extend probably from the outer corners to the middle with applique.  Nothing about this will be quick, but I don't mind that.  I'm keen to do the best job I can with this one.

Happy Quilting!