Blimey

I have another finish for 2011. Woo hoo! (It's been a slow year so far.) This quilt has been in process for some time. It started with an idea and discussion during Quilt Camp in January of 2010 when several of us decided to do a block swap. Each month was assigned to a specific person who would decide what she wanted the blocks of her month to look like. One person chose Christmas colors, another gave us fabric and asked us to incorporate it, someone else wanted bright blocks, someone else wanted stars. Then each person made a block for that month. All blocks had to be 12.5 inches.

I happened to be the first person. I asked for blue and lime green blocks with black and white incorporated. It was so much fun to get the different blocks and see each quilters personality come through with them. I carried those blocks to several camps but never got around to putting them together until quilt camp in January. I added the block borders and sashing, put them together and got the top sewn together with their borders. I also made the back for it.



Fast forward a few months and I finally got around to layering the quilt. I wasn't sure how to quilt it but I knew I definitely wanted to show off each block. I remembered someone on a quilting blog using painters tape as a guide for doing straight line stitching. I couldn't remember the site, or blog, or much about it but I thought I'd give it a try. HA! It didn't go well. I used two different width painters tape and made several - probably 50 - 60 - lines going all different directions of the quilt. Here is a picture of it. I was really proud of myself until I started sewing along the first line and came to a cross line of tape for another line. I knew I couldn't sew through it because then I wouldn't be able to get the tape off - it would be sewn onto the quilt. So I had to the cut the cross tape, continue sewing my line, then try to stick the cross tape back in place. Imagine doing that 500 times. It sucked. Plus all the maneuvering of the quilt and cutting the tape made several spots of tape become unstuck to the quilt. So then I had to pin the tape down. So my easy project ended up being really hard.

But in the end, I love how it turned out. I will definitely do the technique again except I'll only do a few tape lines at time and I'll make sure they don't cross. This will also allow me to hopefully use each piece of tape more than once. I like the idea of being able to conserve the tape! Here is a close up of the quilting.



I was able to get all the blocks in the photo. There are 12 blocks from 12 different quilters.
The top row from left to right are from Cheryl, Pam, and Carol.
The second row blocks are from Kathy, Laura, and Celeste.
The third row blocks are from Christy, Cherry, and Elizabeth.
The fourth row blocks are from Bobbie, Nancy, and Betty.


This quilt measures 91X73 and gives me 13,286 for the stashbusting contest.

Stringy Variation

I love, love, love this quilt. I came to me in November when I was thinking about what I could do with all the strips I saved. I've been saving them for awhile. Here's one previous reference about them.

Anyway, I decided to sort them by color and immediately starting sewing them together. When I was away at Quilt Camp this past weekend, I put the half blocks together and started sewing and trimming and sewing some more. I'll admit I was a bit disappointed that all that sewing in November only amounted to a small wall hanging. But it's gorgeous and I know exactly what I'm going to do with it. I also know that I must make another one - one that's big enough for my bed!

This quilt measures 45X36 and gives me my first 3,240 points for the 2011 Stashbusting Contest.