Squid Ink and Sorbet Quilt

I keep feeling like I haven't been that productive this year, until I remember that I have a backlog of quilts waiting to be blogged...

First up, this one which I'm calling my Squid Ink and Sorbet Quilt.  Back at the start of the year, we decided to do a group challenge to celebrate my local guild's 30th anniversary, using the bear paw (or hand of friendship) block.  All the lovely scrappy bear quilts on instagram might have factored into the decision as well...

 

This is my version - I wanted to work with a colour scheme I hadn't tackled before, and chose darkish grey prints for the background, to contrast against a bright selection of pink, aqua and mustard feature fabrics.  

The idea was to make one block a month for the first nine months of the year, but I have to say, it didn't work out that way for me.  I've discovered, through trial and error, that I really prefer to work quite intensely, almost in a production line way, on one quilt at a time (which is not to say that I don't have lots of quilts on the go at once, but rather than I'm usually actively working on only one of them at any given time).  It just feels more efficient to me!  In the end I made the last five blocks and assembled the top in a burst of activity at the end of September, and then sent the quilt out for long-arm quilting.

I spent a bit of time agonising over the quilting pattern for this quilt, and in the end went with Anita Shackelford's Modern Eccentric design.  As usual, Sue Burnett of Busy Bee Quilt Shop did the quilting for me, and I talked her into using a pink thread on the front of the quilt and an off-white on the back (it's generally not a great idea to use different colours in the top thread and the bobbin, but you can get away with it if they're close in colour).

I just had to use this lovely Tula Pink Freefall fabric on the back of the quilt.  It's sateen, and has a lovely hand.  It's hard to see in the photos, but the quilt is bound in a grey and white striped fabric - gotta love those striped bindings.

Lots of people in the guild made quilts using this design - you can see a nice selection of them here.

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Squid Ink and Sorbet Quilt top

While I'm pulling together my list for Q4 of the 2015 Finish Along, I thought I would share my most recent quilt top finish.  I don't think I've blogged about this quilt top yet, although I have certainly shared a few progress photos on instagram.

This year is the 30th anniversary of my local quilt guild, Capital Quilters.  To celebrate, my friend Anne had the idea to run a block challenge involving our guild logo, the hand of friendship / bear paw block.  Lots of people have joined in - you can see their blocks by checking out the tag capitalquilters30th on instagram.  If you want instructions on how to make these blocks (which are 21" square, you can find them here).

Anyway, I started with this group of fabrics, with the idea of making brightly coloured bear paws on a dark grey backgound.

To keep the scrappy factor high, I mixed pink, aqua and mustard fabrics within each block.  The first four blocks went together quite quickly, as I made one a month.

Then I had a long break between blocks but managed to get the rest of the blocks done and the quilt top put together last weekend.

 

I wasn't entirely sure how that scrappy sashing would work, but I'm happy with the result!

 

There are lots of creatures in these blocks!

 

The top finished at 75" square, so I have sent this quilt off to be long-armed.  I've chosen some super cool fabric for the back, so I'm excited to get it back and finished off.

Guild members are invited to bring their quilts to the November meeting (whether finished or not), and hopefully I will be able to share a whole lot of different scrappy bear paw quilts with you then!