Unity

In the waaay back of early pandemic days, in April of 2020, Bonnie Hunter started a mystery quilt called Unity, and unlike her usual winter mysteries this was a round robin quilt--each week we got directions for another round of blocks. YAY! Something to do while we're stuck at home for a few weeks :P I have very limited fabric stash at home, and the local stores were closed to in person shopping. So I emailed Along Came Quilting and connected with Sharla. I wanted to do an all blue quilt--described to her what I wanted, she texted back some photos of fabrics, and she had a short stack of bolts to choose from by the time I went to the store to peer at the fabrics from behind a taped line through the open door (this was waay back when when we were being told NOT to mask because masks were for the medical professionals). Not an optimal way to purchase fabrics but better than on my computer monitor. I think we did better than OK. But I did learn, the hard way, that Grunge doesn't have anyting on the selvedge to indicate the colorway, and its hard to match up later if you didn't get the color name off the boltend when purchasing the first time. Luckily, when I needed more, Kim was able to take my swatch into the store and match the bolt, give me the name, and then I could order still more again online from Willow Creek, as I emptied the bolt at ACQ.

And then the fun began--I like having a step all cut out and ready to sew, its easy then to sit down for even just 15 minutes and run fabric through the machine.

I was planning all along to make Unity for our bed--but I thought I wanted it square, rather than rectangular, so I put flying geese all the way around (In Bonnie's pattern the geese are only on top and bottom)

It kept growing and growing, and I really ran out of room to lay it on the floor for photos

This was where Bonnie's pattern ended, and with my geese all around, about 98x98. I decided I wanted it a little wider, so the sides would cover the drop of the mattress, so I made it rectangular after all, by adding a checkerboard border to the sides. This is where it took me a while to source the extra grunge, and to figure out what to add. 99 1/2 x109 1/2 was the prequilting measurement. and this is my quilt, for our bed, so custom quilting all the way!! which meant it had to wait for me to have a large chunk of time on the frame, and the right mindset for designing the quilting. The right mindset has been a little hard to come by some days in the past few years. December was finally the time! Wool batting for lovely loft to show the quilting and for warmth and comfort.

I gave the quilt a mix of ruler work and freemotion --straight lines, continuous curve, ribbon candy, loops, figure 8s.

And really, I can look at the back as much as the front. I haven't yet reversed it on the bed, but maybe next month!

Some areas I knew right off how I wanted to quilt them, and some took quite a bit of drawing and planning.

Binding only took an afternoon--I had already made the Susie's Magic Binding last year when I finished piecing the top, so it went quite quickly for a king size quilt. I love that method.

This quilt was on my frame for a full month, I generally track my hours on all quilts, but I didn't on this one--suffice to say it took a ridiculously long time. I was extra picky on this, as it's the first bed quilt I've made for us in more than 10 years, since I've had my Innova. I wasn't able to do precision work or ruler work on my old setup.

Post quilting measurements are about 96x106, so it shrunk up about 3 1/2" in each direction. I've come to expect anywhere between 1-3" It makes a lot of sense, if you think about crumpling a piece of paper and then trying to lay it out again--it won't be its original size as the folds/crinkles have shrunk it in. I did presoak all the fabrics, so I don't expect it to have much shrink from washing--it's been cold here so it went straight on the bed (our other quilt had silk batting and I was a little chilly some nights) where it has been keeping me perfectly warm. There is room for some more shrink though, so it will be OK either way.

Happy New Year! Michelle