Easy Street

I finally finished a mystery quilt that I began in 2014. I made the top following directions from Bonnie Hunter, a famous scrap quilter, who posts a mystery quilt each year on her blog. She is well known for using a LOT of small pieces of fabric. 

I posted my progress on this quilt top, Easy Street, as I sewed it. (Look back in my blog archives to see those entries.). It sat in my "to do" pile for over a year but..... Now it is quilted!

I spent a lot of time "listening" to this quilt and sketching out quilting stitch ideas before I loaded the quilt on the long arm. I modified these ideas a little bit as I got quilting, but generally followed my plan. I really like how it turned out. 

I used three colours of thread. I used turquoise thread on the outer large border where i stitched arches. Purple thread for the skinny border of reverse swirls. And those two colours plus green in the inner pieces section. 

The inner piecing of the quilt used a variety of quilt stitches and colours of thread. The grey area I wanted to be the background, so I tightly meandered that area to pull it to the background. Then I highlighted the green on-point sashing to make it stand out. Here I used cathedral window swoops with pea pods (a la Angela Walters) in the centre. These give a directional flow to the sashing which is what I wanted. The last part was to highlight the central block motif. I did this using turquoise thread and a large flower using the piecing as my location for quilting, so no marking was required. 

All in all, I like the result. I used silk batting inside the quilt. We intend on using it on our Mesa bed, so wanted it light and breathable. We are using right now, to test it out, and it is wonderful. Even if I do day so myself!!