The Tardis quilt, what a great learning journey

The Tardis quilt is complete. It is my first finish for the finish along challenge. You can see my list of many projects by following this link https://kathyskwiltsandmore.blogspot.com/2017/07/2017-quarter-3-finishalong.html?m=1.   This was a fun quilt to do, and full of challenges.  But what a great learning experience.  I love challenges, because they can help us grow.

Read on to see how this quilt came about.

I had never heard of or seen a tardis quilt. Well, that is until one day I just happened to look at pinterest, and there on my pinterest was a quilt that my daughter had pinned for me. Her hubby is a Dr. Who fan, and she thought he would like this. Well, this happened in December. I was trying to get Christmas gifts made, and I thought wouldn't it be fun to try to make this quilt for my son in law. Well, I searched for patterns and found a drawing and measurements. I sent it to my daughter and she said, yep, that is perfect, so I printed the information from www.quiltsofafeather.com and started cutting and putting it together. I wasn't sure it would be ready for Christmas, so I opted to try for his January birthday. Putting the quilt together wasn't bad. I took the lettering for police box over to a copy store and they enlarged it and played with it until I liked it. Then I appliqued the letters on. I chose to do 3 of the windows in yellow so that they looked like lights were on.

When I asked my daughter about this quilt, she said that in the show this police box (phone booth) comes down through the sky. So, I thought a nighttime type of sky. I chose a wide backing that was a dark mottled blue, and then I thought, wouldn't it be cool to use a glow in the dark thread? Right, at $40.00 a cone, not. The lady at the quilt shop suggested that I try an embroidery thread. I started looking through what I had and found some coats metallic thread. Oh, boy. That was hard to work with. I struggled with it like you would not believe. I got to the point that I didn't want to quilt it, because I didn't want to be yelling.  I finally found a video on youtube using superior threads metallic thread. The lady doing the quilting said to loosen the tension, almost all the way loose. Guess what? It worked!!!! I actually enjoyed working on this quilt after that. I chose to do a loopy star design, free handed, and I love the way it looks.

For the windows, I tried my hand at doing a wood grain look. Didn't turn out quite the way I expected it to, but I think it looks alright. I do know that I do need to practice. I used maxi-lock polyester thread for this in blueberry cob. It is a variegated thread and I love the look. One of the things I should have done is used my bobbin the same color because sometimes I see the white bobbin showing through. I guess we live and learn, don't we.

www.wThen on the area around the windows I did a back and forth design. I used the same maxi-lock thread that I used for the wood grain.  The back and forth design and wood grain, I learned from a book called "Free Motion quilting with Angela Walters" of www.quiltingismytherapy.com

I loved doing this quilt, there are some things I learned. Make sure my batting is totally flat. Use a color of bobbin that matches the thread I am using on the top. On the metallic thread I used white in the bobbin, which was okay. All in all, I am really proud of this quilt and I think my son in law will like it, even with the imperfections that are in there.
I love to hear from my readers. What challenges have made you a better quilter?

Linking up with whooping it up Friday at www.confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com