Beauties Pageant

My Quilter’s Color Quest quilt is finished! I have so enjoyed learning about colour by reading Rachel Hauser’s book, ‘A Quilter’s Field Guide to Color’. Working through the challenges presented in the book and via the Quilter’s Color Quest has helped me gain a better understanding of my own colour and fabric preferences. I feel much more confident about choosing fabrics, understanding much better why I’m drawn to some rather than others but also how to incorporate fabrics I might have rejected in the past into my future projects.

The Bear Paw blocks were such a pleasure to make. I decided to piece my 59 blocks into an on-point layout with narrow sashing to separate the blocks. I used unbleached calico for the background, all the Bear Paw fabrics were lurking in my stash or scrap bins.

The backing fabric was a gift brought back from a trip to SE Asia. I had to cut the length in half and join selvage edges together to make a piece the right width for the backing. I still can’t quite believe I managed to match up the two pieces of fabric so well – the seam is hardly visible, even if I do say so myself 😀

At 51″ by 71″ the quilt was a comfortable size to fit through Julie the Juki. I used a Hera Marker to establish the initial quilting lines across the pin basted quilt sandwich. One gently wavy line across the centre and another intersecting it were enough to begin the process of stitching out the wavy grid design. I used a walking foot with the line guide set to 2″ to make sure the echoed stitching lines were evenly spaced.

In the bobbin I used a light brown Aurifil 40wt thread, 2314, which blended well with the backing fabric. I chose a varigated Aurifil 40wt thread, 3817, for the top to give some colour to the plain calico setting triangles at the end of each row of blocks.

To finish the quilt I made a scrappy binding, machine stitching it to the back before folding it to the front and machine stitching it down.  I also made a label, this time stitching it into the binding before hand stitching the other two edges in place. (Here’s the link to a label making tutorial I shared earlier this year).

Last night a storm blew up, I crept downstairs, lifted the Bear Tracks and Big Dottie quilts from the sofas and laid them on top of our inadequate summer duvets. Perfect! We were quickly warm enough to go back to sleep! Makes me think I need to make a full size quilt for our bedroom… 😀

Linking this rare finish of mine with Michelle for the Beauties Pageant, Wendy for the Peacock Party and Alycia for Finished or Not Friday. As an introduction to Down Syndrome Awareness Month Michelle gives a beautiful account of being the parent of a child with the condition.

Allison