Whole Lotta Modern View

Lotta Jansdotter Bella fabrics cut and ready to piece

This is our rainy season in Northern California, which provides the perfect excuse to stay indoors and wrap up some WIPs.  However, all this rain has created some delays in photographing finished quilts!  So without further ado, here is one of the larger start and finishes of 2014:  Whole Lotta Modern View.

This was started back in February 2014, based on McCalls Quilting magazine pattern from January/February 2013:  Modern View designed by John Kubiniec, featuring Lotta Jansdotter's Bella fabric collection.  This pattern certainly appealed to me, but it is rare that I use the same fabrics as featured in the pattern quilt.  But a few days later, I saw a few of the fabrics in my local quilt shops and I picked up a few here and there and the next thing I knew, I had all the fabrics to create this quilt.

Quilt Top Sans Borders

The piecing went super quick, especially since the blocks are fairly large with minimal seams involved.  Once the top was done, I was unsure of borders.  I had selected an alternate print for my borders, but still didn't love it.  I had plenty of spare yardage and drafted up some alternate border ideas, none of which truly appealed to me.  I kept mulling it over and soon other quilts were taking priority, so Modern View top and yardage were stowed away to make space for more current projects.

Fast forward to November, and I decided to pull out my top to work out a border idea.  And then it dawned on me that this quilt really did not need large borders, and so I left it as is.  Much of the extra yardage, including border print was diverted to a pieced backing, so I could layer and baste for quilting!

An all over motif seemed best for this quilt top, so more Serpentine quilting--this time horizontal lines!  Despite a lot of pin basting, I did find the fabric shifted a little and so I had to adjust part way through.  But all in all, it provided great texture to the front and back, without detracting from the simple design or fabric patterns.

For this quilt, I also did all the binding by machine.  While I usually enjoy the handwork, with the holidays rapidly approaching, I simply did not have the downtime to dedicate to hand stitching the binding.  But I still like the look and had it done in a morning!  And then I had to wait several days for the rain to stop so I could take pictures of the finished quilt--which pops against the dreary and wet environment.

So enjoy Whole Lotta Modern View!

Whole Lotta Modern View front

Reverse side--I love how the tree print fabric flows into the wintry tree in the background