Finished Maxim quilt (Quilt studio diary)

You may have read about my quest to find the perfect binding for this quilt – if not, here’s the post. You may not agree with my choice, but I’m happy. Here she is: the Maxim quilt sewn of X blocks:

The finish makes me even happier than identifying the binding fabric! I keep track of all my quilty makes and it is so satisfying to be able to add the entry when an item is finished.

The sunny pictures of the Maxim quilt make me happy too: it feels that a quilt doesn’t get properly represented if the celebratory finishing photos are shot when the sun isn’t shining. And summer sun makes the colours look perfect, don’t you think:

This quilt is the 98th that I’ve finished since I made my first quilt in 1995 (note that I didn’t make another quilt until 2009 when I launched into quilting for real). It is the 641st quilted item that I’ve finished since I started blogging in November 2009, and the 54th whose name begins with the letter ‘M’. You can see I’m a sucker for statistics!

But this quilt is much more than a numbered item on my Excel list. I shared something of the project with you in two earlier diary posts – one in April and one in June – but I think I'll just share a couple more behind the scenes shots with you.

This was rather an unusual project because I was more inspired by the background fabrics that I planned to use for the Xs than the X shapes themselves. I’ve shared an image of the fabric pull earlier, but it was so lovely that I’ll show it to you again:

I even planned a layout in advance, based on these colours. But then, reality stepped in and I saw I didn’t have enough of almost any of these fabrics to achieve the plan. I had to introduce five more fabrics into the mix.

When I had figured out the background fabrics (or so I thought), it was time to design the block. It took me two strangely misshapen tries before I had figured the practical measurements:

Another thing from the construction process that I haven’t shared before: my original idea was to use my abundant stash of scraps to create the X shapes. I even made a few blocks that way, but it did not feel worth the effort. You can see four scrappy Xs in this early picture:

It was too hard for me to create a scrappy strip that worked well with the method I used to construct the blocks. I had also noticed that my planned background fabrics were not going to be enough and thought that was challenging enough to manage during this project!

If you have ever wondered which written aids I use in my quilt design, here is an example:

I needed to figure how many extra blocks I would need for a staggered layout. On the same page, I’ve also written down how many blocks I have of each background fabric, to be able to count again that I would have enough for the quilt.

Even though this quilt top looked okay as a surface, I knew things would get better with quilting, and I was right. They really aren’t quilts until they are quilted:

Here’s a closeup which made me realise what I could have done differently to create a quilt that was more satisfying for me:

I would like Maxim more if all Xs were on a gray background, or if all were on the light backgrounds AND with dark Xs. It seems to bother my eye a little to see some Xs almost disappearing into their background when others contrast clearly.

For the backing, I chose an extremely neutral, subtly patterned fabric:

If you read about my search for the perfect binding, you may wonder why I was so particular about it. It’s barely noticeable in the pictures!

Quilt details for “Maxim”

Pattern: Self designed
Block: X block, 8,5-inch square
Size: 220,5 cm x 181 cm (71” x 86,5”)
Quilting: Longarm quilted by Soile Kivinen at Töölön Tilkkupaja
Quilting pattern: Soho pantograph
Backing: subtly patterned, light neutral quilting cotton
Binding: Self-made scrappy binding of three different fabrics. Cut 6 cm wide, folded in half before attaching.
Finished: July 2026
Quilt number: 98
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