This was a Guild Mystery Quilt that was done as a Block of the Month over ten months, starting in 2015. To say I am late with a finish is an understatement.

As with all mysteries you don’t know what the quilt will look like so picking colours can be challenging. Had I known the name of the quilt I’d have picked fabric that was a bit more calming – neutrals and maybe some light blues for a seascape. When I look back (online) at the pattern the designer used very bright colours as well so I wasn’t too far off the mark.

I fell behind with the blocks early on but I was able to put the top together at the Guild’s Spring Retreat in 2017. At that point I wasn’t too far behind. I sandwiched the quilt in the Texada workshop during the summer of 2019. The quilt sat in a bin there but eventually came back to Powell River (in a bin) until the quilt came up on my 2021 UFO Challenge for February.

In spite of having been sandwiched at least two years ago a good pressing was all it needed and I was ready to quilt. I outlined most of the elements of the blocks and was excited to try some ruler work around the blocks. I’ve never done ruler work on a large quilt and it didn’t work well; I broke a needle only a few stitches in. My next idea was to do some free-motion quilting in the blocks but I was even fewer stitches in when I broke another needle. I’m not stupid – I knew when to call it a day.

Switching back to straight lines I incorporated a few techniques that Stacia and Deloise mentioned. Deloise says she never does stitch-in-the-ditch; she stitches a quarter-inch away from the seam line. As Stacia says you only see stitch-in-the-ditch quilting if you mess up.

Stacia mentioned she had a project where she switched out the colour of thread to match the fabric and, after all the work, it really didn’t show. So, rather than switch from blue to beige (the orange was already done) I went with orange thread on everything.

I was initially disappointed in the quilting on the border. I had a much fancier plan in mind but since the quilting hardly showed on the side that I did it on I decided it wasn’t worth the extra work. I reverse stitched that one side and went with a simpler pattern that I’ve used often.

I’m so glad to have the quilt done – not that I have a particular spot for it, but it is always good to have a finish.

UPDATE: This quilt went to Kathryn