Stained glass spools.....

I've been slowly cutting and piecing this little quilt top over the past couple of weeks.
It features some now very old Moda fabric called Snippets by American Jane. In my book, Sandy Klop is the queen of red, blue, green, yellow, orange and pink combinations in traditional, 1930sh, feed-sacky (another of my made up words!) type prints. I have always loved this line, hence keeping it all these years. This was the first ever jelly roll I purchased way back in May 2009 when the girls and I whisked off to Melbourne for a weekend on our very first 'Sew and Sews' fabric buying excursion.
But I'm on a 'use it' mission these days, so after a bit of fondling I began the hunt for a jelly roll friendly pattern. I eventually settled on a Camille Roskelley, Thimble Blossoms pattern called Spools which I've already talked about here. The pattern is pretty simple with a tonne of cutting of little bits and thin strips. I was a bit apprehensive about all the skinny sashing strips but mine has come together pretty well. Needless to say, Camille's patterns are very easy to follow.
Now the debate with myself about how to back it!

Floral Bouquet...an epic finish....

Now according to my little notebook I started this quilt back in November 2010. Yikes! I recall the fabric arriving (jelly roll of Bliss by Bonnie & Camille), cutting out the components with gusto and piecing virtually all of the blocks in a weekend. And then the top stalled. The pattern is Floral Bouquet from the clever Jelly Roll Quilts book by Pam & Nicky Lintott.
Some months later, in a fit of WIP reduction, I finished the blocks and completed the top, showed it off at Show and Tell with the girls, and there that top sat in my cupboard for months.
Last year I re-measured the top and ordered the fabric for the back. By this stage the colours I wanted were no longer available in large quantities so I compromised and chose the green medallion. It arrived. I had a bit of a think about how I'd build the back and then, you guessed it, it stalled yet again.
Well fourth time lucky on an absolute mission to finish this quilt, that I must say is my absolute favourite from the book and cannot explain to myself with any reasonable excuse, why I didn't finish it! I pulled it all out, set about piecing the back, basting and quilting it all in a matter of days.
Free motion quilting was an epic adventure. This quilt measures 90" x 62". The biggest dimension I've encountered so far is 80", so that extra 10" plus 3" of backing overhang was a real test. I have to admit I got lost in the quilt on a couple of occasions and couldn't work out where I was and more to the point, how I was going to get back to where I needed to be to keep the quilting moving around to finish back at the start. But I got there in the end!
I debated long and hard with myself about binding. Primarily because I'd chosen the green medallion for the back. I was worried that the aqua and lime dot would clash too much with the green. But now that it's on, I'm really happy with it. It's quite lovely on the front and works quite well surprisingly on the back.
The biggest thrill with this finish is the fact that it's finished and what's 14 months between friends! Another spectacular Finish it up Friday that makes me smile....a lot!
Quilt specs:
Pattern: Floral Bouquet
Fabric: Bliss by Bonnie & Camille for Moda, and a Moda solid that I've forgotten the code for!
Size: 90" x 62"
Quilting: free motion by me!

That sinking feeling....

...really hit when I unravelled my much anticipated Jelly Roll yesterday. It wasn't the 'Bliss' I had anticipated. Oh, no....That jelly roll didn't tumble as I'd predicted. It kind of stayed 'Criovac-ed' in a state of frozen animation. I had to push and prod and pull it apart. And then the unthinkable .....a half formed 2 1/2" strip fell from the collection. I plucked it out. I held it up. It was grotesque. Off-skew and in terms of jelly roll quilt construction...unusable.

I gathered my thoughts. After all, these little wonders of superb marketing wrapped in baking terminology are created from off-cuts and ends of (or starts of) new fabric runs, so surely there are slip ups. (None of that reasoning resolves the amount of cutting I'm faced with and what the !#$ am I supposed to do if there's one short....!)

So what do you do before you frame the letter to United Notions that has just run through your head?

You count the strips.

Yes. Count them.

Because that tragic strip that has just sent your world spinning and the quilt top you were planning running down the drain, just might end up being a bonus.

A wonky bonus. But it's extra fabric nonetheless.

Who said there were no thrills and roller coaster rides when you're a quilter?

Thanks 'jelly roll machine'. Send me your wonky strips anytime you want.

Something pretty this way comes.....

A scrummy jelly roll of Moda's Bliss by Bonnie & Camille ordered from the Fabric Shack along with a few other goodies thanks to the fabulous Australian/US dollar exchange rate. Now to pull that little ribbon and let those 40 pieces of fabric tumble free and a day of cutting and hopefully piecing!

Pink Zig, Red Zag....Sweet

I've been in love with Moda's Sweet by Urban Chicks range from the moment I set eyes upon it and desperately wanted it as a jelly roll. But I discovered it all too late and they were all sold out when I tried to purchase one....absolute classic case from my 'buyer behaviour' text books. The more I couldn't have it, the more I wanted it! And, what's more, I knew exactly what I'd make with it. So you can imagine my delight when I found two on our recent Sew and Sew's Melbourne trip. Yippee! Thank you GJ's.

Explaining this fabric lust is the excuse for now having two quilt tops on the go at the one time (not counting the paper piecing and not counting the first quilt I ever attempted that's in the cupboard not finished!). I just couldn't wait to see how it would work. It's another zig zag but slightly modified to suit the width of the 2 1/2" jelly roll (ie. cut 4.5" rectangles not 5.5") and uses the pinks and reds from each of the rolls (11 pink and red plus solid red). Here it is laid out on the floor before piecing.

The great thing is that I can get another two quilts out of the remaining fabrics........sweeeet!