I Met The Deadline...

...but it didn't matter, after all.

The trunk show that I was supposed to participate in was held, but I couldn't go due to nasty winter weather in the forecast.

This is the quilt that I rushed to finish in time...(indoor light doesn't do the quilt justice, I'm afraid)...

I made these twelve blocks during a modern quilt block-of-the-month series on the Sew, Mama, Sew blog a few years ago (July 2011 through June 2012), using red, black, and white fabrics left over from a quilt that I had made for my son as a high school graduation/going off to college quilt in the summer of 2010 (I blogged about that quilt here and you can see the fabrics I used here).

The twelve blocks sat around for quite a while, but I finally decided on a layout and put the top together earlier this fall. Technically, I didn't use a pattern, but just figured it out -- it's basically the BQ2 pattern from Maple Island Quilts. My main blocks were 12 inches finished, so I just did the math and figured out what size to cut the gray and white fabrics around each block, based on pictures I found online.

Here's a closeup look at the randomly-spaced straight-line quilting...

And here's a photo of my son's quilt...it's now in its fourth year of use! (Yikes, where does the time go?) I like to think that my son will take this with him wherever he winds up after graduation, and now I'll have my own quilt that will remind me of him when he's far from home. But I'm not going to think about that right now.

Thank Goodness for Color Catchers

Some of you may remember this quilt -- it is the one I made for my son as a high-school-graduation/going-off-to-college quilt almost two years ago. When I was making it, I blogged about having to wash the red backing fabric five times in order to get the excess red dye out (you can read about that process here). The Color Catchers I used worked great -- all of the white fabrics on the front stayed bright white.

This quilt has been washed several times in the last two years; the last time was just last week. It was washed with a Color Catcher again and this is how it looked when the wash was done...

I wonder if the red will ever stop bleeding....but thankfully, the whites are still nice and white.

Tribute To Flora

Several weeks ago, a few friends and I had a fund quilters' day out in Ithaca, NY. One of the things we did was visit a small quilt display at the Cornell Plantations Visitor Center. This display can be seen until the end of October. If you're anywhere in the area, I highly recommend it. Spend some time wandering around the lovely gardens there before winter kicks in. And if you can't see it person, here's a quick slideshow...



Cornell Plantations Quilt Exhibit