The Iron Man Quilt | Genius in Fe

My last post for 2015 is a quilt that I finished earlier this year in May. I completely forgot to blog about it! This is a quilt I made for my nephew’s birthday in mid-June. I had it finished by the end of May and mailed it to my sister before we left for our summer trip. I should have written about it then, but we were so busy getting ready to go that it just got put off and then forgotten.

My nephew loves Iron Man. I’m not sure if he still does, but I tried to make a quilt that wouldn’t scream “I AM IRON MAN” when he grows (grew?) out of it. I used Quilter’s Linen in Crimson, Ochre and Sky for the top and Metallic Crimson for the binding. I chose the Crimson and Ochre as they are obviously Iron Man colors, and the Sky represents the Arc Reactor in Iron Man’s chest.

The quilt block is adapted from the Folktale Circle Ireland Quilt Block found on McCalls Quilting. Sarah, of Georgia Girl Quilts, found this block for me earlier this year when she knew I was looking for some Iron Man quilt-spiration. I loved it right away, but wanted to make the blocks bigger. So I resized them from 12″ x 12″ to 21″ x 21″.

This is the first quilt I quilted on my Juki Sit-Down QVP-S quilting machine. I did a geometric all-over design in the background of the blocks.

The corners of each block were echo quilting. The center of the block was quilted to represent the Marc IV Arc Reactor design.

I have to admit, the backing is my favorite part of this quilt. As with the Spiderman Quilt (Radioactive Consequences) I tried to make the backing represent the alter ego of Iron Man, Tony Stark. In this case I found Science Fair Formulas by Rani Child for Robert Kaufman. It seemed perfect for a “Genius Billionaire”.

The fabric inspired the name of the quilt. I had a really difficult time trying to choose something other than “Iron Man”. After getting the backing fabric, and playing with it for a bit, the title “Genius in Fe” popped in my head and I knew that was going to be the name. My nephew is smart as a whip, so I figured he would immediately understand I used the scientific name of Iron (Fe) from the periodic table. I designed a label for the quilt and had it printed by Spoonflower. I did not want to have another fiasco to deal with like I did with the Radioactive Consequences label. What a stressful disaster that was! Learned my lesson there!

And with one hour and forty-two minutes until 2016 arrives I am caught up with all of my sewing posts for 2015! Whew!

For those who like stats:

Finished size
63″ x 63″
Pattern
Folktale Circle Ireland Quilt Block Pattern
Fabric
Quilter’s Linen by Robert Kaufman in Crimson, Ochre, Sky (Top)
Science Fair Formulas by Rani Child for Robert Kaufman (Backing)
Metallic Crimson (Binding)
Batting
Warm & Natural
Thread
Pieced with Aurifil 50 wt 2130
Quilted with Aurifil 40 wt 2250, 2600, & 5001
Binding stitched with Aurifil 40 wt 2250
Quilting
Free-motion geometric all-over design and echo quilting
Finished
May 21, 2015