Sunday, January 5, 2014

Quilting Together again-seeing progress - Celtic Solistic done.

The holidays are behind us and my granddaughter Jana and I are finally able to get together and quilt. For the last month her quilting was put on hold. She has not touched her quilt since before Thanksgiving but this weekend she was getting anxious to get it done. There where a few blocks to complete, assembling the blocks into larger units, and finally putting it all together.

My thoughts are occupied with Celtic Solstice. Bonnie posted the reveal on New Years Day and I think it is fair to say that thousands of quilters have been busy as bees since then. I am doing the queen size (smaller version). Today I finished the center.

Center of Celtic Solstice

I had some problems assembling it. I think that was due to some imperfections in my units. A few were a little short or too skinny. All in all it did come together fairly well. I read in a post on Facebook that one writer does not think imperfections show up as easily on a scrappy quilt. I think she is correct. Up close I can find a few miss matched seams, but once you step back they really do not show up.

This week my goal is to get the borders on, at least the white border and then sew the blue and orange triangles into the required strips. They where the first units I made, so they have lots of imperfections, so we will see how it goes. If they are too bad I may scrap that border.

.......Updating on January 7th........ It's done. With help from my facebook friends I figured out the tri-rec border, then added the final border. I'm just waiting for backing to come in the mail and off it goes to my long-arm quilter. Yeah!

added a darker green border to calm things down a bit.


I like this pattern so much I plan to make another, but simplified version. I hope to make it in blues, golds and yellow. No four patches, just blue 3.5 inches squares. The chevron blocks will be white, gold and yellow. I am trying to achieve the look of a starry night. This will be a holiday quilt so it will only be 5 blocks by 5 blocks and I will probably put a nice size border to frame it....

For now I need to focus on getting this one done...and a few other nearly finished projects.

My granddaughter finished piecing the center of her Craftsy 2013 BOM. She has decided against the half square triangles border. She plans on a plain blue border. She says she tired of this quilt, but also she likes it as it is. I agree with her that a pieced border may distract from the quilt. She picked some wild and crazy fabric, which resulted in a very vibrant quilt. I think she did a great job of balancing the fabric through out the quilt.  At times she did things her way. For example the flying geese blocks and the Triangles near the basket. She just played with them until she liked what she saw. Both of us ran out of background fabric, but found ways to finish without it being too obvious. In her case it really was design choice to not use background fabric in the flying geese. I think it was a good idea. Despite being only 11 I think she is developing a very nice eye for color. I can't wait to see this quilted. She does not know what she is going to do with this. She may hang it in our sewing area for a while, just for inspiration.

Only a plain blue border to frame it and it's done.


On the other hand, my "old school" quilt has been sitting in the bin since Thanksgiving. It's wonky. The bottom is a good inch wider than the top. With the holiday's I just put the thing away in disgust. Today I got it out and think I've figured it out. It seems to will be fairly easy to fix. I am going to do the pieced border, but will put it on hold until Celtic Solstice is completed. Mine looks boring next to Jana's. You can see where I ran out of my background fabrics. I'll applique something in the background fabric when it's quilted to bring it together.
My old school quilt top.

The jury is still out on sampler quilts. I did learn some new blocks and a few new tricks. I did my first applique, which turned out pretty nice. At times it was frustrating, like when we did the Y seams on the star block..never again..And Jana swears she will never do another Dresden plate, or circle. We loved the basket, but hate that curved handle. The spool blocks where neat and we loved learning how to make four flying geese at once. The best part has been the memories we have created over the last year as we both learned and worked on our quilts. Now we just need to think about new projects for 2014.


A satisfied quilter.

2 comments:

  1. I have enjoyed visiting your blog. I just finished the top of mine as well and I used similar colors to yours as I followed Bonnie's color suggestions. I like your border. I'm thinking I need to change my border to a darker green like yours. Perhaps we will cross paths on another of Bonnie's Mystery Quilts.

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  2. Your Celtic Solstice is so perfect and beautiful! I love the border you chose.....it is the perfect choice for your quilt! Your grand daughter is very talented as well! I am enjoying your blog! Keep up the great work!

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