Bloggers' Quilt Festival Entry - Spring 2011

My regular readers may say ho-hum when they see this post, since I wrote about this quilt when I finished it just a week or so ago.  But I am so in love with it that I knew it had to be my entry into the Blogger’s Quilt Festival this spring.

The name of this quilt is Miss March.  March 2010 was my month for sending out fabric to the ladies in the Modern Tradition Quilt Bee.  I sent everyone a bunch of fabric in two different colourways and asked for two monochromatic blocks.

The pattern is based on a traditional one – I found it here – which is made with 2.5” strips of different lengths surrounding a centre square.  I wanted to update it a bit and also to allow my bee buddies to have scope for their imagination.  So I asked them to use the teal square in the centre, but to have a party in the coloured bits.

I was so excited by what they did!  One of the blocks has some tiny four-patch mini-blocks that measure 2.5”.  One is made entirely of half-square triangles.

One has large panels made of improv/crazy piecing.

Some are made entirely from strips, some are made entirely from squares, and some are an energetic mixture of both!

The talents of all these bee quilters were really in evidence – I was thrilled.  And fortunately I also had help with the assembly of all the blocks.

I used Essex linen-cotton blend in Putty for the background.  It was okay for piecing, but when it came to quilting it stretched like a fiend.  I like the contrast in colour and texture with the background and the flowers.

I chose this pretty Tina Givens print for the back.  I think it’s perfect! 

And to add to the excitement that I feel over this quilt, it is also the first time I have ever tried to do an actual motif-doodah in my FMQ.  Normally, I do variations of an allover, more or less swirly quilting meander.  But this time I knew that those large spaces left by the linen called out for something special.

I used, more or less successfully, a kind of flower motif that looks like some kind of chrysanthemum on steroids.  Thankfully, once the quilt was washed, it became harder to see that some of those flowers looked like hamsters after a binge weekend.  Overall, though, I was pleased with the quilting and am encouraged to continue to challenge myself in that domain.

This one is going on my bed.  I’m glad to have a new quilt to replace the one I’ve been using for so many years – I made it when I was pregnant with my daughter in 1993!  After all those years of wear, including two sets of two dogs who loved to lounge on it, it was ready to retire.  Miss March is a worthy replacement!

I’m glad to have the chance to feature this in Amy’s Blogger’s Quilt Festival.  I’m excited to see what everyone else is showing this time!