Back to Quilting

This is the last of my Christmas gifts to be finished... still undone! Several years ago, my uncle gave me a quilt made by my great grandmother, and in return, I promised to make him a queen sized bed quilt. Although I love the rather tattered antique that is full of sentimental value, I have to ask myself, "What was I thinking?" It has been ages since I tackled a large bed sized quilt, and I need to just finish it and move on. For the pattern, I designed a twelve inch block with no matching seams. I also used two inch sashing on alternating sides of the blocks to further remove the need to match seams. As a way to add interest to this very simple block, I top stitched thin strips of fabric onto the largest squares within the blocks. The above photo is of the top half of the quilt. I am making the top and bottom separately to ease the bulk of quilting this mammoth piece. The fabrics in this quilt are hand dyes and batiks. I wanted it to look like light on the water - my uncle spends a week every summer on a canoe trip on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and it is one of his favorite places. Uncle Mark, I hope you like your quilt!