When you get to quilt the same quilt twice, it really gives you an opportunity to see the difference a choice in the quilting design used can make to the ending look of the quilt.
I had the honour of quilting two different quilts from the same class The Sewing Cafe ran. In the class, we were making a lookalike quilt that Beth uses in several episodes of Yellowstone. Both quilts were gifts to big fans of the Yellowstone series, so I delayed posting any images. But now I definitely can. This is what was the inspiration of the class in case you aren't familiar with the show.
I was honoured to have the class instructor ask me to quilt her quilt. With Catherine's quilt, I had a little more creative freedom and we weren't going to just do the straight line quilting. We wanted to jazz it up a little.
We mostly did an edge-to-edge design to keep the costs reasonable, but added a little customization in a center block using a Mount Serenity Continuous Triangle by Ida Houston. Catherine wanted to embrace the country aspect of this quilts, think cowboy hats and lassos. I went big and bold with the design, because Beth (the character in Yellowstone) is a strong woman unafraid to take up space. It's the largest I have ever used this pattern, but still within what the batting allows for density.
Catherine supplied her own batting, an 80/20 from Pellon. It was lovely to work with and I think I prefer it over Hobbs. She choose a dark grey thread so you could really see the quilting in the light grey squares. Which we matched to and blends fairly well on her cozy flannel buffalo check backing.
We used my West design that I digitized with this quilt in mind, and then added the mountains and a couched Dutton Ranch brand in the center block. Because everything on the Dutton Ranch has a brand, sometimes even the people!
Doesn't Catherine's quilt look great!
For Helen, she wanted a simpler look, a little more modern, and not overly dense quilting. Her backing fabric had the mountains, and so we decided together on the Malachite pantograph © 2016 Patricia E. Ritter. It feels like topography map lines to me and with the valley of the Dutton Ranch being such an important place to the Duttons on Yellowstone, it seemed like a good fit. A balance of what Helen is drawn to and something that ties to the quilt itself.
We toned down the thread a little, choosing a grey that wasn't as dark as Catherine's grey and kept the design large, but still close enough together that we were playing it safe since we weren't 100% certain what the batting Helen had was. I think it turned out really lovely, still a Yellowstone quilt, but this time with a little bit more of a modern vibe.
Here are some photos of Helen's beautiful quilt
There is one more Yellowstone quilt to come to me for quilt. I wonder what the quilting on that one will look like?