Bright Sanctuary
Flannel Medallion Quilt
Finished 30 June 2017 - longarm quilted by Crystal Zagnoli of The Quilted Cricket
After studying Sue Falkowski's Merry and Bright quilt project, designed for Henry Glass fabrics, I decided that it would make a nice flannel quilt. So I went to the Missouri Star quilt shop and looked at their flannel fat quarter bundles. Since this quilt will go a friend in the Colorado mountains, the Endangered Sanctuary line from Moda was exactly what I wanted. Along with the fat quarter bundle I ordered several yards of an off-white for backgrounds, a light gold with leaves for the accents and a deep red with leaves for the border. I'll give it a wool batting, and of course an extra-wide flannel back.
I was more than pleased when the order came in, this flannel is as soft and plush as velvet, and the colors are deep and rich.
It made a gorgeous warm quilt, and large enough for even a tall person at 96" square. I named it Bright Sanctuary.
It's so large and heavy that I finally have to give in and arrange for a long-arm quilter to do a professional job of quilting it.
The Quilting
First results out of a Google search for a longarm quilter in the Denver area was Crystal Zagnoli, aka the Quilted Cricket.
I mailed the finished top to her, and she's taking care of the batting and backing and binding for me, as well as shipping the finished quilt to my friend in the mountains. This saves me a tremendous amount of shipping costs - it wouldn't be cheap to ship a large flannel quilt overseas - not to mention the cost of shipping for batting and backing I would have had to order online.
We selected an edge-to-edge quilting design of oak leaves and acorns. The thread will be King Tut cotton, in a color called Flower Pot. The backing Crystal decided on is a wonderful brown-and-beige houndstooth plaid flannel, and she chose a rusty Stonehenge cotton for the binding.
Here it is on Crystal's longarm frame...
Crystal finished the quilt and sent it to Jason via FedEx, he should get it in a few days.
I
I asked Crystal to quilt in a small "Easter egg" surprise on some random part of the quilt, and she liked the idea.
Here it is again, on the back of the quilt.