I finally completed the quilt I've been working on for months. It's for my guild chapter's 2017 raffle (Foothills Quilters).
I'm so grateful that I was able to pass this off on Thanksgiving morning to the lady who is sewing on the binding.
Back Story: I quilted the quilt with an all-over feather meander in the center, small feathers in the red border, and outlined the applique, and then meandered around it. I quilted this in mostly 2 hour stretches while my 2 1/2 year old great grandson was napping (on the days I wasn't so tired from chasing him around that I had to nap right along with him).
The ladies in Foothills made log cabin blocks for a quilt we donated to our meeting place. I took the left-over blocks to make this raffle quilt (think left-overs = many blocks not true to size). As you might guess, when asking for 12 1/2" blocks that will be 12" when finished, sometimes you get 12" blocks before they're finished. That meant I needed to remake a dozen of the blocks to make them fit together. We chose this star layout which I think is kind of unique and striking.
I then gave a class on appliqueing an easy way (glue method), made kits for the ladies, and passed as many out as I could find takers. After I collected them I made the ones that were missing for the layout I designed, and sewed them onto the borders. Sewing them on took about 73 hours. I missed a few session of keeping track so this number is conservative.
Then I proceeded to figure out a design for the quilting and did some marking of the top. Loading also took some thought because of the pieced backing, so I'm pleased that that turned out okay. A lady in our group made the pieced back using several of the smallest blocks and I appliqued some flowers and leaves on it after I completed the quilting.
I decided on Dream Wool batting because the feather meander has some rather long feathers in some places and Dream batting can be quilted farther apart than what I had originally planned to use (Hobbs 80/20). This quilt feels cuddly already with the wool batting in it.
After I completed the quilting, I realized it would need a hanging sleeve so we could display it on our quilt rack for the raffle. So made that and a label that included laundering instructions.
I was so pleased to hand it off just before noon on Thanksgiving. Yea!
Here are some close-ups of the quilting and the back of the quilt: