Gong Show

Looky looky, y'all!  Gong Show is finished!  Don't ask me how, but I managed to get it entirely quilted, bound and washed up yesterday.  I had expected it would take a few days, but when I realized there was a possibility that I could finish it, I was up until midnight to make it happen.

I adore this quilt.  I think it might be my favourite of all that I have made so far.  And it surprises me because I am emphatically not a brown person.  I never choose brown in clothes or home furnishings.  I don't know what possessed me to order this yardage in brown, but I've had it kicking around forever, and only considered pairing it with this Far Far Away III on a whim.  But I think it totally works as a neutral.  It makes the colours in the other fabrics just pop.

I backed it with some older Joel Dewberry - I have always loved this print and how the deer and birds are embedded in it.  You can see Darla checking out the quilt there in the bottom left of the photo.

I drafted the templates to make this quilt from an old Nancy Cabot pattern called Chinese Gongs. You can go here to see what it looks like gridded out and easily make your own templates.  Each block is 14" and the quilt measures 70" square, and I used a bamboo batting (my favourite).  I quilted it with Aurifil 28 wt. thread.  It's the first time I've used Aurifil for quilting and I like it well enough.  I don't think it beats King Tut, but I'll probably be using Aurifil for awhile, since I found an online store with it on clearance and I bought a whole whack of 28 and 12 wt thread in many different colours.  The binding is an orange print from Lizzie House's Outfoxed line.

When I was making this quilt, I kept being reminded of how, when I was very young, my two cousins and I used to stay with my grandmother while our mothers were at work.  At naptime, my grandmother used to write the names of the three bedrooms on little slips of paper, roll them up and put them in her silver sugarbowl. We would each draw one to find out where we would be taking our naps.  My favourite room was my uncle's old room - long since vacated by him but still obviously a boy's room, with his old curtains of orange and brown plaid and the bedspread of orange corded cotton.  The room had a western exposure and by naptime it was bright in there, even with the curtains drawn, and often I would just lie quietly and look at his football trophies or page through picture books.  I could often hear my grandmother taking clothes off the squeaky clothesline right outside the window - they were always dry by naptime.  Something about the colours and images in this fabric line brought those memories of that peaceful room in the '60s flooding back.  I'm going to like having this on my bed!

Edited to add: I am linking this to Amy's show and tell and Amanda Jean's Finish It Up Friday!  Go look at all the other finishes for the week and spread the love!