Monday, November 19, 2007

Country Pineapple Blossom Finished!

Time for "The Quilt is Done, Done, Done!" happy dance. ;)

It's a great lap/baby size. I can't decide if it'll live near my bed or the couch. It matches the couch very nicely, which is a dark green. I love green. Can you tell? :D

I don't think I realized how densely I quilted it until I was done. I knew it was more than normal, but my nose was too close to tell until it was completed.

I just love, love, love how it turned out. I hope it never gets put away.

The backing shows the stitches much better.

But this photo is washed out - the backing colors are much brighter, like you can see in the label.

And here's a no-flash shot.

Really gives the impact of the quilt's "crinkle". But this crinkle is all soft and goodness. ;)

I wrote the label between the stitches.

First time I have ever been able to put the exact date on! :D

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Now for the "nitty gritty" details of the quilt.

The pattern is Bonnie Hunter's "Pineapple Blossom", free and a great stash buster. My version is without sashing though. I'm lazy like that. ;)

The fabric is from Connecting Threads, their Speckled and Stars Sampler, which consists of 15 fat quarters.

I also bought 1 additional yard of fabric for the binding, but I only needed 5 strips, so a half yard would have been more than enough.

I used 5 of the gold/yellows from the Sampler for the 3.5" squares. Each unwashed FQ gave me 30 squares. I had to cut VERY carefully, as you can see below, I only ended up with little "stubs" of fabric. Everything else "leftover" was less than 1/4".

The 10 other FQs netted a little more leftovers. From each 2" strip, I was able to squeeze one 2" square, a total of eighty 2" squares.

There was also just under 2" wide strip left after I cut what I needed, so I trimmed that down to 1.5" strips, one of each color.

And then I tossed in a pile o' ends from the 10 FQs. But they went into the trash after the photo. :)

So it's possible to make this quilt top for $25.33 using half a yard for binding and the FQ sampler... but you have to cut perfectly. There's no forgiveness allowed. Be perfect, or no quilt that's 5x6 blocks. If you do decide to do it and make a mistake, I'd opt for doing it 5x5 blocks, or add sashing if possible.

The thread is Milk Chocolate, and I pieced the top with Silver Essential Thread.

And there you have it! :)

Leah

12 comments:

Chrissie said...

Congratulations! You done good, girl! And it's beautiful - that is a fact. The quilting is absolutely the best I've seen you do, and you do marvelously. Could you do a tutorial on meandering quilting? :)
Take care, Sweetie, and God bless!
Chrissie

Anonymous said...

Wow! You are amazing! I am in awe! Makes me want to try to learn again. I sooooo failed the first time!

Do some more because I have had the most fun keeping up with you this past 7 days. Do some more! Do some more!

~Ruthie Redneck

Anonymous said...

Oh it is lovely!

You are so talented!

Kathy

Carolyn said...

It turned out beautiful. The colors are fabulous and the wrinkliness (is that a word?) that came from densely quilting it is perfect...my favorite kind of quilt!

Rose said...

Wow!!! That could not have turned out better. I loved it as a top, but this is just so gorgeous.

Angie said...

What a beautiful quilt! You've done an absolutely lovely job with that!! The chocolate thread for the quilting is perfect! I would love to make one just like, so thank you for sharing show much/which fabrics you used, as well as the binding fabric and threads. Happy Thanksgiving!

Helen in the UK said...

Beautiful colours and great quilting! Congrats on the finish :)

Saska said...

Love the colors. THis quilt pattern is definitely on my to-do list too.
The quilting looks really good!

Tricia said...

WOW! I love that quilt! The colors are beautiful.

Tricia

Kim said...

Wonder Girl is your new name on my blog :)
Congrats on a great finish!
It looks great!

Dannielle said...

GORGEOUS!!!

And you managed to get that old fashioned quilty-puckery look I love that you don't see as often with machine quilting. Way to go!

Ya know what would be cool to maybe try sometime? As small as your loopies are you could probably write your label with machine stitching as you're free-motion quilting. The numbers might be tough though.

I truly love it. :)

Valerie said...

I LOVE it!!!!! I love the quilting you did especially - thanks for sharing the collection of fabric you used...I am buying some of that fabric and might just be making a twin to your quilt! Lol* Hehehe :)