Stitch Club Kantha Quilt Top + Back

Though we haven't begun 'quilting' our Kantha quilts yet in the Alison Glass Stitch Club 2022 Kantha Sew Along, we have begun some serious prep work. After choosing our fabrics, we went ahead and pieced our quilt tops. I went with the strip version, which obviously provides long lines to gauge our stitching off of.

AND we pieced our quilt backs. I didn't have any large pieces of Carolyn Friedlander fabrics to 'match' the front, but still am pretty happy with my pieced quilt back. Apparently, there is traditionally no batting used in a Kantha quilt, so that is interesting! I'm curious about how that all looks and feels.

I also chose some size 8 perle cotton that coordinated with the fabrics in my quilt top. In retrospect, maybe I should have chosen just one color to use throughout, but I can decide that for sure once I get started.

There is an optional addition to our Kantha quilts though, and that is the inclusion of some chain-stitching in the form of words on our quilt - top or back, either one, but I chose to add them to my quilt top. This isn't something I've done before, but why not?

Alison did provide an alphabet template, which I really like, all based on circles. Luckily, I saw Lisa/@intheboondocks post about how she was using a pressure-sensative film and her lightbox to trace her letters, and that seemed like a great idea to me! I had some Pellon Stick-N-Washaway on hand which worked similarly. It's also pressure-sensative and a water soluable product, so you write on it, peel and stick the light-weight film onto your fabric, and once it's embroidered on, you get it wet and it 'melts' away.

After my stitching was done, I trimmed away alot of the film around my letters, just so the washing was less messy.

Let's just say I'm really happy how my letters turned out!

The phrase I chose to include was 'one day at a time,' which is a phrase I've said often when folks have asked me what I have planned for my retirement. Plus it just seems like a good philosophy right now. Anyway, all my prep is done, and hopefully I'll be working on quilting my Kantha quilt later this week.