2017 – Tesserae

It’s finished. It has taken much time to complete the applique, assemble the quilt sandwich, do the quilting, bind the quilt, and add the embellishments. I began hand quilting it, but realized that the stiffness of the tiles made it difficult to hand stitch, so I switched to machine quilting.

Quilting Between the Tiles

I only quilted on the background (“grouting”) and just enough to keep the layers together. On this quilt, there was no room for quilting as a design element. My Viking’s “in the ditch” foot was perfect for keeping within the lines.

Completed Tesserae

Embellishments were stone, shell, and metal beads used in places instead of appliqued tiles. The final size of the quilt is 22-1/2″ x 34-1/2″.

Another huge thank you to Kathy Thaden for permission to base this quilt on her 9″ x 17″ mosaic “Eden” (c) 2012. Her work can be seen at http://thadenmosaics.com.