I finished the first row of this in June, 2015. It was a Guild project where we got a new row once a month. Needless to say I fell behind very quickly.

Five years later I picked up the project again and got both the quilt and the miniature to the sandwiched stage.

The project came up again as my March UFO Challenge and I very much enjoyed working on it again. The bright colours certainly cheered me up on gloomy days and on brighter days it made me want to be outside.

When the Guild called for additional entries into the 2025 quilt show I decided to enter this one.

Karen, a Guild member, started us on a row-a-month using Seminole patchwork techniques. I very quickly fell behind but I managed to finish it several years later. The bright colours cheered me up on gloomy days and, on brighter days, it made me want to be outside. Quilted on my domestic Janome.

I think I used every quilting stitch in my quilting repertoire. The star, the diagonal boxes, and my new favourites – the mattress stitch and one-quarter from the ditch.

The miniature will be used for a Hands Across the Water Challenge; it is made using scraps from the larger quilt. When we planned for the event in March last year the theme for the challenge was Escape Into Colour. I’m hoping that when we are again able to host the event the theme won’t have changed.

This quilt is the result of a weekend of quilting with Stacia and Deloise. Our theme was donation quilts but this isn’t the pattern I originally planned to make. I did a lot of work getting everything cut out for a different quilt and then I decided that it was too much work (and too pretty) to give away. This pattern is one that Deloise has made often and Stacia was making it during our session. I think Deloise made one or two more over the weekend.

I had enough flannel in my bin that I had some choice in the squares I used but I think it is a pattern that could be put together without all the squares matching.

The top went together relatively quickly (for me) in spite of an obvious mistake.

I had a new stitch to use for my quilting pattern.

The quilt ended up very soft and cuddly and it will be donated to the Guild’s Community Quilts program.

Another sewing session with Stacia and Deloise and another mini completed.

The top went together very quickly. I thought of a couple of ways to quilt the project but in the end went with my tried and true eight-pointed star. I didn’t even need to do any marking on it.

I pulled out a few choices for backing but there was no logical colour for the binding based on the fabrics I used in the top. I delved into my small collection of binding ends. There was only piece that was long enough for the binding so then I had to go back and find a backing that would match the binding. This one worked out quite well I think.

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