Friday 15 June 2018

A Friday Finish

     I have a finish to share with you.  Here it is nestled into the dark recesses of my backyard.  It's a group effort and the process to make it was a lot of fun.



     Way back in May of last year the Grand River Modern Guild decided to make quilts for the Ronald McDonald House in Hamilton.  One of the guild members, Lisa, noted that all the quilts where very girl themed and she thought we should make some more neutral or boy friendly quilts. So we all brought some fabric to a meeting and we set about making versions of Rainbow Round the Cabin from Krista Hennebury's book Make it Take It.  Krista is an amazing modern quilter who blogs at Poppyprint.
   

     Nine quilters worked at sewing the logs on the quilt, a couple of quilters trimmed and a couple of quilters pressed.
How this works is you start with the centre and sew on a strip.  It get trimmed to size and passed to the next quilter.  So nine quilts where made simultaneously getting passed around the room.  It's a fun group activity and when your quilt gets back to you it's a bit of a surprise!

     

     
        Because Lisa (there are 3 Lisa's in our guild) was collecting donation quilts over the year there was no rush to quilt it, so of course it sat in my pile till the last minute.  Inspiration hit after looking at the Quilt Con calendar of classes and seeing that Christina Camelli will be teaching several classes.  This spurred me to watch my Craftsy classes and practice a bit.

     I decided to further practice my free motion quilting on this quilt, trying out different motifs in the different strips.  I'm sharing lots of pictures to show you the quilting.  I'm most comfortable quilting from the left side of the quilt to the right side and quilting gentle curves, but I bravely practiced quilting from the top of the quilt down and straight lines and boxy shapes.

     I'm pleased with the result.  Quilting on this scale is challenging.  My stitch size is still all over the place but I did find that the coordination of hand and foot improved greatly by the time I got to the end of the quilting.

     This is my third finish for the 2nd quarter of the 2018 Finish Along.  The original list is here.  Now I'm headed over to Lisa's ( a different Lisa) blog Lisa in Port Hope for the TGIFF link up.


     

15 comments:

Bernie Kringel said...

What a fun way to make a quilt. How wide were the strips? What size did the quilt finish at? I love it. This is a great design for practicing your quilting. I think it looks really good!

Lisa J. said...

Sorry. I thought I put that in the post. The strips are 6 1/2" wides. The quilt is about 48" square.

Vera said...

Last minute always works fine for me too :) Neat project!

Nicole said...

Lovely idea and pattern for a sewing bee! And hooray for finishes. Your quilting looks great.

Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl said...

What a very awesome method to create quilt tops as a group activity. What an awesome effort and finish that I am sure is going to be very appreciated.

Anonymous said...

A lucky boy will get that quilt!!! What a great idea for a quick quilt!

Sandra Walker said...

It's wonderful! And you're so right: you improve by the end of the quilt. By the end of every single quilt. So just dive in and go for it; there's no other way to get better, and wow, I love what you did on it. :-)

Louise said...

What a fun idea for a group project! And in the end you made nine quilts; that's impressive. Your FMQ samplings look really great! I know what you mean about one direction being much easier than others. Some motifs are easier in one direction, impossible for me in a different direction. Congrats in this sweet finish :)
louise dot hornor at gmail

Pamela said...

A great idea for a great cause! Congrats on a gorgeous finish.

Stitchin At Home said...

The quilting is wonderful on this! I think we all have one direction easier than the other, but changing directions gets easier the more you do it.

Lisa in Port Hope said...

What a great day you had, and congrats on improving your free motion quilting and helping out a very worthwhile cause. Thanks for linking to TGIFF. And Lisa is a great name ;)

Shelina (formerly known as Shasta) said...

Great idea to have a more neutral quilt and a great round robin challenge. Very beautiful with wonderful quilting. There are a lot of Lisa's in your word!

helenjean@midgetgemquilts said...

That was a fun community quilt to take part in . I am sure the boys do get forgotten about in these things

laughing gas quilts said...

Your plus quilt is great- the directional fabric makes is really interesting, even if it did require more thought.
That charity "quilt a thon" was a super idea. Well done!

Sew of Course said...

What a great idea to make quilts! Thanks for linking up on behalf of the 2018 global Finish-A-Long hosts.