Thursday, February 22, 2018

a BIG finish


I finished my Bird of Paradise quilt!!  Appliqued and quilted by hand - only the assembly of the blocks and basting was done by machine. 

 I started with the Threadbear Civil War Bride quilt pattern.  I made 10 of the blocks just like the pattern, 4 blocks slightly altered and the remaining 6 blocks I drew myself using some of the flower and leaf shapes from the pattern and my own drawings.  For my borders I took inspiration from the original 1862 Bird of Paradise quilt pictured in The Quilt Engagement Calendar Treasury.  I wanted the horses for sure to be included - they add so much energy to the quilt.  I also really liked the top border from the original so I sewed mine to be similar.  The sides and bottom are of my own design. 
With the horses racing along the bottom you'd think I'd have been racing to a finish.  Actually I started this quilt in September of 2010.  Quilting began in May of 2016 and finished in Sept of 2017.  Yeah - September.  It took me 5 months to trim and bind this quilt.  It was like an anticlimax.  And, I'm not sure why.  I loved working on this project so much - I miss working on this project.  It's a fairly large quilt and I really don't have anywhere in mind to hang it.  I'm really happy with how it turned out - I'm just not really sure what to do with it.
 Here are some close ups.  I love the squirrels :0)  They've been so busy hanging upside down off of our bird feeder eating seeds all day today.  (I was less happy with them when they were digging up and eating my carrots in the summer though)
It's a large quilt to display.  I'll find a spot for it somewhere I'm sure.
 It was a tremendously fun journey.  I learned so much about applique and designing blocks and borders while working on it.  Honestly I'd love to make it again. 
It is fairly densely hand quilted.  After I saw Hilda's beautifully quilted Civil War Bride quilt I wanted that look as well.  I learned a few things about marking while I worked on it too.  There were challenges :0)
 
Overall, it was a wonderful ride :0)  What next??

Happy Quilting!

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

On Ringo Lake mystery


 This week is the last link up for On Ringo lake - Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt.  I don't have my quilt finished - not even close.  I have 39 blocks made and I love them.  They go together quickly when you have all the block parts pieced.
 I especially love them set side by side.
 However, there are a lot of points to match up and those spots could potentially be pretty lumpy so I'm thinking about some plain sashing.  This pink is my favorite so far.
The On Ringo Lake mystery has sashing pieced from these parallelogram units.  A few people have used these units as a border and I really like the look so I'm going to save them for that.
 My border won't be exactly like this layout here.  I may still set the blocks on point like in the pattern.  Here is a link to go see other peoples' mystery quilts.  It was such a fun mystery project to participate in. 
 
We enjoyed a lovely family escape from winter to Hawaii last week.  It was beautiful!
Of course there was some stitching.  I could sit outside and watch for whales and enjoy the flowers with my stitching.  It was wonderful!
We came home to -25 temperatures and it just keeps snowing.  Winter is a long season here so it was good to take a break.
Happy Quilting!!