Lug Nuts

I've been looking forward to quilting this quilt since I first decided to make it, over a year ago.

The pattern is Lug Nuts, from Highway 10 Designs    I really enjoy making Lori and Kathy's patterns.  The only change I made to this one was I changed the pressing instructions so the seams would lock.  It pieced up nice and easy.

I had had my eye on the Little Black Dress fabrics for a while, and that was what Kathy and Lori had used for their cover quilt, so I decided to use Little Black Dress fabrics too.  The quilt uses 9 fabrics.

Here's the flimsy when I finished it in October 2014 (try not to let the lovely carpet in the boardroom at the hotel we use for retreat boggle your brain)

and then it had to wait and wait for its turn to be quilted.  I quilted it in August, and it took until early October to get the hand stitching finished on the binding, so, all told, about 1 year from start to finish.

I had so much fun quilting this quilt, each of the 25 blocks in the quilt (23 whole blocks and 2 blocks that are in 1/2 at the top and bottom) is unique, so I applied the same idea to the quilting, and each block is quilted uniquely--several of the elements are repeated, but no two blocks were the same.

Now, the hardest part I think, and what's been delaying the blog post, is deciding which photos to share, I love them all so much....

It's a big quilt--about 80x88.   Not quite big enough for our king size bed, and probably too big for a couch quilt, but that's what I wanted it for...

 This block was handguided triangles, but looks like ruler rays. 

 OK, so by now you may have figured out I didn't do a great job in selectively choosing photos--but truly I've added less than 1/3 of them to the blog.

The rays in the block below used a ruler to keep them straight.

 This block below is one of my favourites.  It's all ruler work, and I think looks like a lovely flower.

and then a few of the blocks got an 'E2E' treatment, where the whole block just received an edge to edge design.

 and the back is as yummy as the front

 simple shapes like loops, u-turns and s-curves can be very effective

 and here is the quilt in its natural habitat--flung upon the couch (we're not big on folding neatly around here)--waiting for someone to come and cuddle under it