Blogger's Quilt Festival 2017 {Entry #1: Clover Sunshine Sampler}

I am so excited that the Blogger's Quilt Festival is BACK and back in its original form! Please visit Amy's Creative Side to see all of the entries (all in one place!)

For my first entry, I decided to share my Clover Sunshine Sampler quilt. This was sitting as a WIP on a shelf for a very, very long time and I finally buckled down and got it quilted in June of this year.

As indicated by the name, all of the prints used in this quilt are from a fat eighth bundle of Alison Glass's Clover Sunshine line. Most of the blocks used in this quilt were featured as tutorials on my blog during a quilt along in Summer 2014. 

You can read a little bit about my process of starting to quilt this quilt here, and quilting this baby in the way that I envisioned took a lot of patience and quilt wrangling. The further I moved out from the center, the easier and easier quilting this quilt became as far as moving the quilt. It is about 70 inches square -- so a rather large throw -- so working on the center blocks was rather difficult. Finally getting to the edges was cause for celebration!

I didn't count the rings or sew my spirals to a particular width or size -- I mostly just kept continuing the spiral until it filled in the "nooks" left by my previous spirals. The spirals don't equally overlap because the blocks are not perfectly arrayed in the quilt. I also had to add in a few "tiny spirals" along the edges to fill in some open spaces as well, as you can see in the pictures above and below. This quilt had the most threads to bury of any quilt I have quilted to date.

Here's a picture of the backing (major kudos to Park Ranger Husband for being willing to put shoes on to help me take these pictures):

My diagonal strips all go in the same direction and almost nearly match at the seams! It has a beautiful texture. I added in the pink half yard of Summersault from my stash since my quilt math was ever so slightly off on the small side when I ordered my backing fabric. Whoops.

For the binding, I had just enough of my white backing fabric! It has a different sort of look having a lighter binding with a slightly darker quilt. I sewed the binding by machine to the front and hand stitched it to the backing.

Quilt Stats:
Name: Clover Sunshine Sampler (click here for more posts)
Fabrics: Clover Sunshine by Alison Glass, Champagne Kona used for background
Size: 70 inches square
Quilting: One extra large spiral per block, overlapping (with a few extra arches near the edges!)
Started: Spring 2014
Finished: June 2017

Thanks for stopping by and reading about my quilts! Don't forget to visit the Blogger's Quilt Festival for all of the lovely quilts! You can visit my second entry here!

Clover Sunshine Sampler {Finished Quilt}

This quilt was a very long term WIP -- started in 2014 as part of my QCQAL -- the top was finally constructed in 2015, and I finally have it quilted and finished! Hooray!

Most of the blocks used in this quilt were featured as tutorials on my blog in Summer 2014. Many of the other blocks have easy to find tutorials and patterns in other places.

I talked a little about starting to quilt this quilt here, and wanted to add a few more notes in this finish post. The further I moved out from the center, the easier and easier quilting this quilt became. It is about 70 inches square -- so a rather large throw -- so working on the center blocks was rather difficult. Finally getting to the edges was cause for celebration!

I didn't count the rings or sew my spirals to a particular width or size -- I mostly just kept continuing the spiral until it filled in the "nooks" left by my previous spirals. The spirals don't equally overlap because the blocks are not perfectly arrayed in the quilt. I also had to add in a few "tiny spirals" along the edges to fill in some open spaces as well.

Here's a picture of the backing (major kudos to Park Ranger Husband for being willing to put shoes on to help me take these pictures):

I ordered the backing and then got the dreaded email stating that I was getting the last of the fabric in stock -- but it was in two pieces. I realized after getting it that had it been in one piece, it would have actually not been big enough for the quilt! So I added in a half yard of Summersault fabric so that it ended up being the correct size. I also made sure all of my diagonal stripes went in the same direction.

For the binding, I had just enough of my white backing fabric! It has a different sort of look having a lighter binding with a slightly darker quilt. I sewed the binding by machine to the front and hand stitched it to the backing.

This is going to be my new summer couch quilt!

Quilt Stats:
Name: Clover Sunshine Sampler
Fabrics: Clover Sunshine by Alison Glass, Champagne Kona
Size: 70 inches square
Quilting: One extra large spiral per block, overlapping (with a few extra arches near the edges!)

Sharing at Finish it up Friday!

PS. Don't forget to check out our summer Kona special! The two sizes are the yardages needed for the Magnolia QAL, but it's always a good time to stock up on Kona, right?

In a Spiral {Quilting My Alison Glass Sampler}

After sitting on my shelf for over a year, getting moved in January, and then sitting on the shelf for another 4 months, I have finally started quilting my original QCQAL sampler quilt. This was my second quilt along all the way back in 2014. I finished the top in 2015, and am just now getting to quilt this quilt. Here's a picture from when I put the top together originally:

The background is Kona Champagne and the fabrics originally came from a fat quarter of Clover Sunshine that I won from a now-defunct blog.

My plan for quilting this quilt was to quilt 25 spirals -- one centered in each block -- instead of one gigantic spiral so that I would be able to FMQ all of the spirals instead of having to use my walking foot (I hate my walking foot -- but that is a conversation for another day.)

Instead of pinning the whole quilt, I started off only quilting the center block and one block on either side. I always run into issues when FMQ-ing with my backing shifting, so I decided to not even fight it this time around, and just deal with pinning each section as I move through the quilt.

As of now, I have 7 of my 25 spirals completed. Here are pictures of the first four spirals that I did:

Side note: because the background is champagne but my backing fabric is white, I'm using a very light tan thread on the front and white thread in the bobbin. I have had to be kind of neurotic about making sure that I use the right thread in both places!

I'm almost done with the center nine blocks which means the hardest part of this process is nearly over! Even just moving from the center block to the inner ring was a huge improvement as far as bulk and quilt movement goes!

Cheers to pushing things ever so slightly closer to the finish line!

Sharing at NTT!