Handmade quilts by Nicole Boettcher

Quilt Details

June–Oct 2022
Cotton
112 x 100 inches

Process

Hundreds of half-rectangle triangles, for a king sized bed.

It was a challenge to machine quilt this on a tiny domestic Singer, in a 560 square foot apartment, and it pushed me to learn new ways of managing large work. I decided to work in sections, creating quilted panels and joining them together, instead of quilting the whole piece all at once. To unite the quilted panels, I left a small gap in the quilting so that I could sew only the top layers together on the machine, then, so that the joins would be invisible from the front of the piece, I switched to hand stitching to splice the batting layers together, and finally, another round of hand stitching to close the back seams together. I finished the quilting by making small rows across the splice in the same direction as the rest of the quilting. Most other methods for splicing quilted panels together require the use of fusible tapes, which are synthetic, and I didn’t want to use them.

Machine and hand pieced, machine quilted, machine- and hand bound.
Quilted in the ditch, along the patchwork lines.
Patchwork binding, using offcuts from the quilt top.

Other Bed Sized Quilts

The Grid quilt is a full/queen size, and Tracy is a purple 9-patch queen sized quilt.

Quilt Details

Jan–Dec 2022
Cotton fabric and thread, with cotton-silk-bamboo-blend batting
93 x 93 inches

Process

A patchwork grid quilt, fit for a full or queen sized bed, inspired by the weavings of Gunta Stölzl and the Bauhaus school.

This was the largest quilt I had ever made when I started it, and to quilt it on a small domestic machine was a physical feat. After the original, smaller dimensions of the piece were quilted, I decided to add additional panels to the side and bottom, challenging myself to make the splices as invisible as possible on the front patchwork side. On the back, you can see the late additions: the tall strip of yellow along the left side, and the small strip of red at the bottom, recording the effort, and preserving it.

The neutral background is made up of 4 inch squares, and the grid lines are only a half-inch wide. Running vertically, the lines alternate in teal and black. Running horizontally, they are in red and a dusty pink. The half inch square cornerstones are chartreuse on the pink lines, and lavender on the red lines.

Machine and hand pieced, machine quilted, machine and hand bound.
Quilted in 1 inch vertical lines.
Backing is pieced from two vintage cotton muslin sheets, in red & white and yellow & white stripes.

Quilt Details

Oct–Dec 2022
Cotton
96 x 96 inches

Process

A special 9-patch commission, fit for a queen sized bed, in myriad combinations of purple shades. With a neutral exterior border, which I added to the perimeter after the center was quilted – you can see the evidence of this on the back of the quilt. The backing is pieced from two similar vintage 1960s pink striped sheets.

Machine pieced, quilted, and bound.
Quilted in the ditch, along the patchwork lines, and echoed the patchwork quilting in the negative space.