Puzzling a quilt without the picture on the box

Black Tie Affair Quilt  ~ 58.5" x 70"

Simply Stunning Quilt ~ 62.5" x 74.5"
4 Buffalo Check Shams ~ Standard Pillow Shams
Started - January 2022
 Finished & Mailed June 2022

For Allison

This quilt story began in the summer of 2021 (July) when I got together with family. The family had all met in Toledo Washington for a family reunion with a cousin I hadn't seen or spoken to for 40+ years. I must say we had a delightful time. Of course, we had matching t-shirts that said - Holy Toledo Family Reunion 2021.

Allison, Al, and the rest came South (after touring the Oregon Coast and visiting the Redwood Forest) to visit with us for a few days before travelling back to Colorado.

Similar to past quilt stories, Allison saw some of my latest quilts and asked for two quilts for her spare bedroom. She began looking for ideas and had several in mind.  Yet, she couldn't decide on just the right one.

It wasn't until November (4 months later) that the right one (or should I say two) came along.

Allison had picked out one called Simply Stunning and the other called Black Tie Affair. During our conversation, she said she wanted the quilts to fit two queen size beds. Although I have pieced a quilt that size before, I would have to send it out to be quilted if we kept it that size. I literally found myself breaking into a cold sweat anticipating doing one quilt that size on my home machine let alone two quilts.

Unfortunately for Allison, the 2 quilts fit for a queen would have to wait until January. I was still working on Jimmy's koi quilt which needed to be finished in time for Christmas.

As we talked, she said that she would be happy with a bed runner or a lap quilt to cover up with on cold nights, but it wouldn't be used as a bedspread. Whew! I could handle that.

She also said that she loved the buffalo check look, and the quilt colors would be grey and white to go in a room with mostly black and grey accents.  She told me she loved a scrappy look for the quilts in a variety of patterns.

Basically, make two complementary quilts that were different in style yet similar.

I ordered fabric from Connecting Threads, my favorite online store, in a pattern called plaster in 3 colors: light silver, light dove, and dark grey. This would serve as the constant color theme for the shams and the quilts.

Since I seem to have an overabundance of grey fabrics, I had a lot of different fabrics to choose from to fulfill the request for "scrappy". I had decided to use the variety of scrappy fabrics to carry over to both quilts to bring in a coordinating look between the two quilts.

The process began with making the buffalo check pillow shams. The front side was buffalo check. I made them in an envelope style so the shams could be washed as needed and put back on. For the backside, I had been given some heavier upholstery style fabric in a black & white pinstripe ticking that would be perfect. These were made with a flange around the border.

Now it was time to tackle the first quilt - The Black-Tie Affair Quilt.

I used as many different grey fabric designs as possible for the different bowties. The "white background" was the light silver fabric, the cornerstones were the light dove, and the sashing strips were the dark grey.

For the quilting - I did SID around each triangle, around each sashing strip, and around each cornerstone. Inside the cornerstones, I did a continuous spiral. And all of the "white-space" received a meander-FMQ stitch. I did a variation of Ribbon Candy-FMQ for the inner light-colored border. The quilting really set-off all of the bowties.

Next came the Simply Stunning quilt with an abundance of quarter-square triangles. The pattern had pinwheels in black throughout. Because I had decided to switch out the black triangles in the pattern for a variety of different fabrics, the count of half-square triangles was different than the pattern called for. I had to keep a running tally of how many solid half-square triangles and how many patterned half-square triangles to make. There was a lot of counting and re-counting involved.

It is almost humorous that my clients (otherwise known as family) have a pattern to follow but want to switch it up. Yet another mind bender for piecing together the tops. This was an exceptionally challenging process because there is only pinwheel blade (in each corner) for each quilt block.

I was able to accomplish this by doing Block A - with 4 different blades in the corners, then make block B with the corresponding blade that matched the side of Block A, then do the next Block A adding the necessary pinwheel blades, and on and on. Instead of quilting/piecing, I think it should be called "puzzling" because it was like putting a puzzle together without the benefit of the picture on the box to compare the results.

My goal was to finish these quilts as quickly as possible. I worked on them in between other projects (aka Quilty rabbit trails).

For the quilting of Simply Stunning, I did SID around all of the boxes and then did a Meander-FMQ in all of the white spaces. For the inner border, I did a variation of a Ribbon Candy-FMQ motif. Although there was a lot of burying threads, I loved the finished results. The pinwheels and the interlocking squares all stood out with a three-dimensional effect.

I had planned to sew on the binding for both quilts as we traveled in the car when we received news of William's birth. Because William was a bit late in his arrival, I had the opportunity to go on a shop-hop with Nancy and Mary and ended up doing the entire hand-binding as we traveled from shop to shop.

After I returned from a two-week vacation helping Tiffany and Jimmy welcome little William, I was able to finish up the quilts, and the binding of the Black-Tie Affair, label, and get them in the mail.

Every quilt tells a story. This is the story of making two quilts fit for a queen that were different yet similar. Even though the quilt patterns were different, by using the same fabrics throughout, I would say Mission Accomplished!

Every Quilt Tells A Story
Whether it is the fabrics chosen, the design, the colors, the occasion, the recipient, or the people I quilt with, every quilt tells a story. This blog captures in images and words what has been created for others and for my own home through the hum and stitching of my sewing machine.