Quilt for California Two

I'm a bit late with this post, but I have a very good reason. Mini road trip. And you know what that means: an opportunity to display a finished quilt in a gorgeous location! Yes, I have a finish, a day later than I expected (I'll explain in a minute), but it's all good. I'll leave the best photos for the end, but first a few driveway shots--my usual photo location in the winter. I took these this morning before we left because I wasn't sure if there'd be good photo ops on our little trip.

Here is my second quilt for California. And yes, that is the second option I showed in my last post about it. I know I said I was going to do the first option (diagonal stripe layout), but I surprised myself when I laid out the blocks. There was something about how the black triangles completed the squares in the off- center barn raising layout that appealed to me, and since it took awhile to lay it out, why not go with it? So option number 2 it was. 

A bit wavy, but I don't mind. It hasn't been washed yet. 

After eyeballing the leftovers from the front as well as a couple of sizable pieces of fabric in my stash, I realized I had enough on hand to make a pieced backing. Actually, I love this part of quiltmaking. 

The concentric square quilting with a walking foot was fun. I used a hera marker to draw corner to corner lines in the patches for some rows, and the guide bar that came with my walking foot for the lines half way between the hera-marked rows. I gained a whole new admiration for quilters who can do this with circles. Turning the quilt for the first few passes was WORK! But once I got going, I liked being able to quilt for a long distance without stopping. The simple quilt design seems to fit the style and design of the quilt. It's a lot smoother than the photos suggest. The sun was pretty harsh, but I'm not complaining. We hadn't seen it for awhile.

Everything was going well until I got to the binding. I had planned to sew it on by machine, and did so, but the second seam was something of a disaster. I had cut it just a smidge narrower than usual. That, some added thickness (I think) from having to piece a whole lot of little bits together to have just enough binding to go all the way around, and a bit of sloppiness in trimming the batting all resulted in a really unattractive and possibly fragile edge. I went to bed Wednesday night determined to sleep on the problem (but not lie awake all night obsessing about it). Thursday morning, I knew immediately that I was not going to give that quilt away (even anonymously) in the condition it was in. Instead, I spent the day happily picking out the last seam little by little and restitching it by hand. It took me all day, but now I have a quilt that I'm pleased to give away. And I think this hand sewn edge will hold up well to a lot of use. 

Bottom right says it was worth whiling away a day with a needle, don't you think?

So here are some stats and additional tidbits and then we'll get to that little road trip.

Date constructed: January 2018
Pattern: Block is a variation of Perkiomen Valley designed by Scott Griffin. Layout is off-center barn raising of 42 blocks (6 by 7). 21 blocks have the turquoise and green colors reversed. 
Fabrics: A variety of leftovers in my stash. They hold so many memories!!

Batting: Hobbs Premium 80/20 Cotton
Thread: Superior Masterpiece cotton in Granite for piecing; Superior King Tut cotton in White Linen for quilting; Superior Treasure in Old Lace for hand sewing on binding.
Binding: Cut 2 3/8 inches wide and folded in half. 
Size: Blocks: 12 inches finished. Quilt: 72 1/2 inches by 84 1/2 inches pieced. About 71 5/8 inches by 83 1/2 after quilting. I haven't washed it yet. I expect some shrinkage, but I think that pressing will relax it again since the quilting is fairly wide spaced. 

Machines: Singer Featherweight for piecing; Singer 115 Treadle for walking foot quilting. 

Tidbits
I spent $11.23 total on this quilt for materials I didn't have on hand. This was the cost of the batting (50% off). I think that's amazing for a twin size quilt. I didn't set out to be "cheap" but it all just fell together. 

This quilt is brighter than what I was envisioning. I never think of these as "my" colors. But I've obviously used them in a lot of quilts, including ones for one of my grandsons and my granddaughter. And now that I think of it, I used them in pinwheels to decorate tables at my son and daughter-in-law's rehearsal party. I still have some of those pinwheels. (My granddaugther always asks for some when she comes over and I am only too happy to send them home with her.) So I'm thinking the quilt will appeal to a young child, or someone who likes the idea of a fiesta.

Like our ancestors, I made do with my fabrics. I knew I wanted to used the Kaffe Fassett Roman Glass in the corner of each block. I didn't have quite enough to make all the patches, but I did have enough by piecing four of them.

There is a Cotton and Steel Dottie fabric in there that is wrong side up in every patch. When I made my half-square triangles, I accidentally sewed right side to wrong side. I didn't feel like picking all those seams out, and the pattern still showed, so I made sure that I used the wrong side in all of the squares, too. (That's our little secret. Well, not anymore, I guess.) You can see it there on the left in the picture above.

I used up fabrics from this many of my comic book boards.

There are some leftover scraps, but I have a plan.

And here's proof that I finished the quilt.

Okay, so where did we go on this January day? To the beach!! The temperatures were in the 50's! IN JANUARY!! So of course we had to go see what was going on on the shores of Lake Michigan. First we visited Holland State Park. The ice was racing down the channel to the lake. I have some cool videos, but these stills will have to do. First the lighthouse (I once made a tiny quilt of this one).

The ice swirled around when it was trapped by the pier.

Those sandy colored hills in the distance are huge ice mounds.

Even people in business suits came out to enjoy the day.

I was hoping for some quilt photos, but it was too windy. However, up the road, there was a little park that was more sheltered.

A perfect place for more photos of the quilt. Quite a bit of ice. I am always amazed by how silent it is by the lake in winter when there are no waves lapping at the shore.

Bye bye, Lake Michigan. Thank you for the lovely day and fabulous photo op. 

This quilt will soon be on its way to California for people who lost their homes to the Thomas fire and mudslides. Thanks to the Ventura Modern Quilt Guild and Superbuzzy fabrics for taking on this huge task of bringing comfort to so many people. If you'd like to help them, there is still a lot of time to contribute blocks, quilts, or materials to their efforts. 

I'm ready now to work on something a little smaller for a few days. I've decided to follow the RSC18 at Soscrappy and make some string blocks. I haven't joined a monthly "QAL" before so we'll see how this goes. I've already sorted out my blue scraps. I think I've finally caught the "use up all those scraps" bug.

I'm linking up with crazy mom quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict for their linky parties this week. 

I hope your day was as beautiful as mine! Keep quilting!

Quick Saturday update: I washed and dried the quilt today. It's now 70 7/8 by 82 5/8 inches--pretty close to the original size so it should fit a twin bed fine. Just wanted to get that documented. Also, I forgot about TGIFF. Sandra at mmm! quilts is hosting this week I'm linking up to that party, too.