Wanderer’s Wife Quilt

Let’s take a trip back to December 2017, when I had just finished my Wanderer’s Wife quilt top! I made this quilt as part of an online sew-along over the course of several months. The pattern is by Jen Kingwell (it was called Gypsy Wife at the time, and has been updated to use more sensitive language!) and remains a popular quilt today. This was the second of two Jen Kingwell patterns I made that year, and I concluded that December 2017 blog post by saying I wasn’t sure how I would quilt it just yet…

…well, 8+ years later the day for finishing this quilt finally arrived!! This is one of the 6 items I put on my list for this year’s UFO challenge, and the second one that I’ve completed. Back when I made this quilt top, I didn’t have a longarm and thus quilted everything on my domestic machine. One of the biggest reasons I set it aside is that 1) I wasn’t sure how I wanted to quilt it and needed to let some ideas percolate and 2) I loved the top so much that I didn’t want to “mess it up” with quilting!!

My color choices for this quilt were driven by the idea of making the blocks look like stars in a night sky. Now that I’ve got my computerized longarm setup, I knew a swirly, space-themed pantograph would be a good choice to finally get this long-lingering quilt across the finish line. I didn’t want some super on-the-nose, and asked for suggestions in the Longarm League community. There were several good options, and ultimately I went with the Interstellar pantograph by Melissa Kelley. It has the loose, meandering vibe that I often like for quilts like this, plus it’s got stars sprinkled throughout the swirls.

This quilt doesn’t have a destination, and won’t be something I enter in shows, which means I usually would’ve chosen to machine stitch the binding in the interest of getting it done faster. But I felt like this quilt deserved a bit more special treatment, so I spent a few hours over the weekend hand stitching the binding. Jose helped me shoot some photos earlier this week and voila! It is done after 4 months…and 8+ years!

The stats:

• Pattern is Wanderer’s Wife by Jen Kingwell.
• Quilt measures 59″ x 68″.
• Fabrics are all Kona Cotton solids.
• Backing and binding are Starry by Alexia Abegg/Ruby Star Society.
• Batting is Quilters Dream cotton/poly.
• Pieced with…probably Aurifil 50 wt thread in Dove? (I don’t know for sure.)
• Quilted on my APQS Millie with Superior So Fine Thread in light blue.
• Pantograph is Interstellar by Melissa Kelley.