It's two days before Thanksgiving here in the USA. This morning I've been thinking about the controversial aspect of this "holiday" and decided to focus on the "gratefulness" aspect of it. Gratefulness is a universal attitude that can reframe mindsets and dissipate frustration. The challenge is to look beyond the personal aspects and adopt a wider viewpoint of gratefulness so if you will indulge me for a paragraph before I share finish #17?
I'm grateful for all the courageous people who are calling out dominate cultural views and expanding my point of view on a variety of topics from racism to habitat protection. It has been a year of discovery for me in spite of hardly leaving my little world. I hope their impact on my thoughts and ideas will have a powerful impact on my life going forward.
I'm also grateful for each of you and your interest and support of my blogging and social media posts!! You give more purpose to my life and efforts than you realize.
And finally I'm grateful for that loaf of bread baking in the kitchen and lifting my spirits with it's aroma. Nice that the sun has decided to shine this morning, too!
Number 17 is finished!! Quilted, bound, and snuggle tested!
The blocks are paper pieced - a BOM from a very clever gal I found via Instragram -- Elisabeth at @lemonshark. If you want to see some of the other versions or check out her blog with the PDF's for the blocks, search the hashtag #sharksdinnerbom2019 on Instagram. There are twelve different blocks -- each has the same outer shape but the center of each one is a different configuration of shapes.
(Also, the background/sashing is my design and everyone has been doing their own thing with that.)
The backing of the quilt is a scrappy Kaffe thing (I'm trying to use up that stack) as is the binding.
I "big stitched" this quilt with #8 perle cotton using Quilters Dream Request batting. It is so soft and supple!! The background/sashing is quilted the same on each block plus the entire "motif" is outlined with white thread.
I used an assortment of perle cotton colors -- orange and green, lavender and teal -- choosing colors to blend or contrast with the color of the pieces.
The quilting designs were spontaneous decisions -- sometimes I was inspired to quilt in such a way that a big motif was emphasized rather than the individual pieces that created it.
The gray crown in the middle of the block below is a good example of that.
Other times, my brain was stuck and so I simply outlined the shape often times using a contrasting thread color. I enjoyed being spontaneous!
I usually do my handwork in the evening (while watching English murder mysteries) and each block took between 4 and 5 sessions. It felt like I was zooming along!
I was zooming along!!!
I said there are twelve blocks so there is a second lap quilt underway with the six remaining blocks. The blocks are about 22" square and I feel like two small quilts will be more useful and appealing than one big quilt given the boldness of my color/fabric combinations.
Quilt number 18 is about 75% machine quilted so it feels like there could be another finish before the end of the month -- woot, woot!!
My biggest dilemma at this point is do I clean the house or make Christmas gifts??
Bread is done!!
Mary
The quilt blocks are so beautiful, you've got a lovely quilt! Nothing beats the smell of bread baking, happy stitching!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on a beautiful finish. These are beautiful blocks with greater color choices and your quilting enhances them wonderfully.
ReplyDeleteSeeing your lovely finished quilt inspires me to do some work on one of my UFO's. I like British mysteries, too, but I need captions on and don't get much stitching while watching.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful! And homemade bread, too? Yummy!
ReplyDeleteForgive the slew of comments you're going to receive from me as I go through these. Bread and a quilt? You can't beat that! Very pretty blocks and I love that scrappy Kaffe back!
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