Canadian Abroad

It's that time of year again folks. Time to go out and admire everyone's lovely quilting creations. Amy's Creative Side hosts this Quilt Festival twice a year and it is a real joy to have a look at the inspiration out there from all over the world. 

In the autumn I entered my Wonky Stars quilt into the festival. This time around I have to put my Stained Colourful in because each and every day it gets used and loved. It is the best thing I ever made - besides my two girls - ever! Even better than chocolate flapjacks and they are pretty darn good.

If this is your first time to my blog and you have never seen this quilt before, then I used my friend Sarah's tutorial which can be found on Narcoleptic in a Cupboard. The tutorial is fabulous and designed to use eleven fat quarters. I chose to go my own way though.

I hauled out my fabric stash, and using Sarah's block instructions I cut 144 different fabrics for the quilt. I did not think about the individual placement of each fabric within the quilt. I am far too shot away to ever have worked that out. I would still be sat there dithering.

No, I just cut and hoped for the best. And the best did happen. Well, in my eyes at least. Almost every fabric here has been hoarded in my stash waiting for 'that right quilt'. Some were quite small pieces that I received in scrappy swaps that I wanted to use in a way that they would not be lost in the over all pattern. I now sit there on the sofa at nights with this over me and happily wallow in all these fabrics.

I used Kona Snow for the narrow sashing, and for the back as well. I knocked together five more blocks for the back and spent more time pondering their placement than I did working out where to put the 144 fabrics on the front!

I stippled it in a a big lose stipple to keep it soft and snuggly. Made a scrappy binding and that was it. I finally made a quilt that was for me and no one else but me. Sure I let the girls use it once in a while, but I do spend more time telling them to get their grubby little paws off and having heart palpitations when they bring food near it. If someone is going to get a big smear of chocolate on it then it will have to be me.

If this was your first visit to my blog, thank you for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. I'll be doing my best to have a look at everyone else's quilts over the next week. Enjoy the quilt festival!

Susan