In a previous post I talked about the improvisational approach I took to create a quilt from two silk scarves I bought while on vacation in Kauai.

That previous post showed some of the different layouts I’d tried–both on the computer and on my design wall–for all the pieces I’d sewn together.  The picture on the right shows nearly the final design.  Just a few more pieces were added for the final quilt.

The completed quilt top is pictured below.

For the quilting I used white thread and quilted gentle horizontal waves, generally following the piecing of the quilt top.

The full quilted top is shown below, before trimming it.

Rather than a rectangular quilt, I wanted the edges to be ‘wavy’.  There were two portions of the quilt top which weren’t as wide as the rest of the quilt — the upper right corner and the middle of the left side.  These areas partially dictated how I could trim the top since I wanted to keep as much as possible.  I drew a chalk outline and then, once I worked up the courage, trimmed the quilt with a rotary cutter.  Here’s the quilt after finishing it with a facing (see Jeri Riggs’ tutorial).

Once I had the quilt all done and I’d looked at it over several days, I decided I didn’t like the curve of the right edge of the quilt–the bottom seemed too heavy to me.  Before cutting the quit and making a permanent change, I did some digital ‘cutting’ in Photoshop to look at different alternatives for the curve of the right side.  Below are some of the options I tried.

I decided I liked the look of option #4 the best–it adds just a bit more curve to the lower right side.  Without cutting the quilt (what if I changed my mind?) I unsewed part of the facing, ironed the quilt to achieve the edge I wanted, and resewed the facing.  Here’s the final version of Kauai Waves.  It’s only a minor change, but I’m much happier with the result.

“I never finish a painting — I just stop working on it for a while.” — Arshile Gorky