Framed Fish
Yesterday we stitched a fish, and today we mounted it in a frame. Today's blog is about how we did the mounting. I don't know if anyone else mounts quilts this way, and I'm not sure I would recommend the technique, but it's what we've been doing.
The process starts with making a really, really thick, double-quilted thing (Nina calls it a cross between quilting and upholstery). These things generally do not lie flat, for reasons discussed in the previous blog post. But look how puffy it is! This one has two layers of 1/4" batting on the top quilt layer and two layers of 1" batting on the bottom layer.
There are two layers of appliqué with four or five wavy lines of stitching around the edge. Jury's out on how good this actually looks.
Notice the extra band of close parallel lines all the way around. That's the part that is going to wrap around the frame. The arches are catenary curves to distribute the stress of stretching, which isn't really a factor for this one because we're trying out what it's like to stretch only quite gently.
Here it is wrapped around and hooked onto the screws (which you don't see in the picture above because they were not in yet at the time):
And here is the final product again! So puffy!
Nina wants to do it again but as a "real quilt" this time, rather than a half-quilt, half-mattress monstrosity. Unfortunately during the making of this quilt a wooden shim fell off the machine and into one of the main drive belts. The shim is splinters now, and the belt will never be the same. We will have to wait for a replacement to arrive from China before we can use it again, sadly.