Blessings In Blue

I finished my hardest quilt to date. It was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but head bone had to go and shake things up and need surgery. Some people.

Anyway....I wanted her to have a visible hug from me while she was recovering from her surgery (and while I have her kids and she is allllllllll alone healing and resting). So, I double timed it and worked my tail off to get it done pre-surgery.

Wow. It was not easy. When it was done I kinda walked around in a circle not knowing what to do with myself for a day. Until I woke up to the fact that it is October and I have 2 more quilts to finish off if I want to give them as gifts as planned.

So.....the unveil of Blessings in Blue......
This is a total Frankenstein quilt. The bottom left corner out to the rectangles is from a pattern called Bricks and Stones from Red Pepper Quilts.
It wasn't quite big enough for what I wanted so I enlarged it a little and still wanted more. I decided to add the cross blocks. Still wasn't big enough. Then I made the alternating angels and butterflys (to signify her girls).
I still wanted it a little bigger so I used up most of the extra 2 inch blocks. NOW it was done.
I used a small polka dot for binding. I don't really care for dots, but all the best quilters I follow have been binding with them lately and I love the way it looks. Go figure. I wanted a bigger dot but this was the best I could do in the colors I was looking for.

My white sashing are in 3 different tone on tone patterns. The outer sashes are scroll work. The inner ones are stones/circle looking ones. And of course the other one is butterfly's.

I pieced the back with my extra fabric and extra blocks. It has an embroidered signature block also.
I also got brave and made this my first free motion quilt. Oh my is it a mess. Luckily most of it wont be noticeable once its washed and has the crinkled quilt look. I still need lots and lots more practice. I also need a machine that I can program to stop with the needle down in the fabric to avoid the shifting from the weight of the fabric when I reposition my hands.
The small squares I kept pretty even...it was the bigger ones that gave me fits.
I did "crazy spiral" one the outer border. Didn't keep it very uniform but it wasn't too bad. Also, I used a variegated thread with 3 shades of blue. Wont do that again. I didn't like the darkest blue on the white. Plus, the thread had weak spots and would start to shred in the needle hole. This made lots of thread breaks and aggravated me to no end since I did not buy cheap thread.
The mid size blocks have a spider web looking spiral in the dark blocks. See how unsteady and wiggly it is??? I'm sure a year from now I will look back at is and nearly die of embarrassment that I actually gave that to someone. At least I hope so anyways....

And there she is...in all her amateur glory. I learned alot from her. How to paper piece. Lots of free motion practice. How to cut a binding with the GO!

Hope Tricia loves her as much as I do!