I finished Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt top yesterday March 15th. Bonnie's original design was to use blue fabrics for the "darks". I am not a blue person and chose purples and brownish purples. The flying geese tri-rec blocks and the chevron units were paper pieced using a patterns I designed on EQ7. The split triangle units were also paper pieced using the Birds in the Air quilt block. With the plum colored borders the quilt measures 90 x 100 inches. This quilt is going to be my summer quilt once it is quilted. FYI, a confession, I did not purchase fabric for my quilt, it is all from my stash.

Celtic Solstice - Clue 2 - Cutting done

Wow, it takes a long time to cut all these pieces. 200 green rectangles, 200 neutral square and 200 yellow/gold squares. And I found some more neutrals in my stash and cut a few more. Thank goodness I decided to do the SMALL quilt. Now off to sew some test CHEVRONS.

Celtic Solstice Clue 2 - Greens

My greens and all 200 of the 2" x 3 1/2" rectangles cut. Upward and onward!

Clue one, First Tr-rec blocks

First 24 Tri-rec blocks, umpteen more to go. But I like to "test drive" my fabric choices before continuing. So far I like the colors a lot. Sure wish I had some good sunlight to show the richness of the colors.

Here are a couple of donation quilts that I completed last week. Both are scrappy using scraps and fabrics from my stash. The backing is flannel and the batting is rayon-bamboo/cotton machine quilted on my HQ Sweet Sixteen.

Comfy Flannel Lap Quilt, Scrappy

The center of this lap quilt was a flannel thrift store find and already sewn together. The border fabrics are left over flannel scraps from previous quilt backings. The backing is made from left over flannel cut into 2 1/2 strips and sewn together using the Jelly Roll Race method. Batting is cotton. This quilt is free motion quilted. This quilt resides on the recliner.

Blue Diamonds Lap Quilt, Scrappy

 This is a 48" x 58" lap quilt made from left over 4.5" squares left over from previous projects. The backing is a thrift store sheet, batting is cotton.  The squares are set on point and then framed with 2 borders. The quilt is free motion quilted.

Dusky Grouse Quilt, aka Prairie Chicken. The pattern was designed by Nancy Harcourt of Prairie Queen Pattern Company. It is a "scrappy" quilt made completely from my fabric stash. The backing fabric is good Portuguese flannel sheets purchased from Goodwill. The batting is cotton. I used the Quilt As You Go method to construct the blocks. The quilting is Free Motion Quilting using my Singer 15-91, HQ Sweet Sixteen quilting machine and Elna 7300 Quilting Queen Pro. I relied on Leah Day's book, 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, for quilting inspiration.

This quilt ended up being 120"x108", an extra large queen sized as I added a plain black pillow tuck at the top because I did not want to make 5 more Grouse blocks. It was not a good day for outdoor pictures. And it was difficult to find a place to hang such a large quilt. The arbor in front of the green house was pressed into service.

 
                                         The Quilt Inspector approves of the quilt on the bed.

                                       
                                         Another close up of a quilted block. The quilting design
                                         in the body of the Grouse I designed myself by making
                                         a cardboard template and marking the flannel backing
                                         with a washable marker.                                        

                                          The back of the pillow tuck showing the quilting

Overall this is one of my favorite quilts to complete. The QAYG method was a challenge because it was the first time I had used it and I chose to use cornerstones in the sashings.

Seminole Pieced Baby Quilt

This is one of my favorite quilts. It was made using the Seminole Piecing method, machine pieced and hand quilted. The quilt was made for my Granddaughter, Tiffany, about 20 years ago. I did not think to make a quilt label then. Even I can't remember the exact year. But I do know that it was made to be a baby quilt. Yep, a very non traditional baby quilt!

Corduroy Squares Quilt

This is a corduroy squares quilt I made for my Great Grandson, Jaydon. The cord squares are all from skirts and left over fabrics that I used to make the skirts for my mother. The backing is flannel that I purchased many years ago to line sleeping bags, finally found a use for it.