Irish Chain Quilt-a-Long Finish

Today, I would love to share my finished Irish Twist wall quilt.  I made this quilt during the Irish Twist-a-Long designed and hosted by Melissa Corry from Happy Quilting.

As usual, Melissa's pattern is beautiful and her instructions are very detailed and clearly written.  I love her quilt-a-longs and was so excited to have a chance to join another one of her quilt-a-longs.  I decided to make the wall size version (about 30" x 30") as decoration for my sewing room.  My 5 year old daughter had other ideas and claimed the quilt as soon as saw it; so the quilt is going to go live on the wall in her room :)

For fabrics, I used a whole bunch of Bonnie and Camille fabrics on a Kona Navy background.  I think most of their past 5-6 collections are represented.

I made a couple of changes to the pattern mostly due to the fact that I was making the small wall quilt instead of one of the larger versions.

1.  I made the X blocks straight instead of wonky.  If this was a larger version and there were more X blocks, the wonkiness would have looked more intentional, but I was afraid that having only 4 X blocks in my version the wonkiness would look more like messiness.

2.  I eliminated the pieced blocks and replaced them with the appliqued petal blocks.  I really was excited for this quilt along to try some applique because I have only really tried it once before so I decided to use 5 petal blocks instead of the 1 petal block and 4 pieced blocks. 

For the quilting, in the background I used a dark blue Aurifil thread to outline the petals and fill in the areas with some tiny stippling.  I used a light cream Aurifil thread for the Bonnie and Camille fabrics using a wishbone pattern on the petals and a back and forth squiggle in the X blocks.

I finished the quilt off with a scrappy binding.  Thanks for looking!
Here are my work-in-progress posts for the quilt:
X blocks - February 17, 2015
Petal blocks - March 25, 2015

I am linking up the Irish Twist Quilt-a-Long finish post:

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, Finish It Up Friday, Fabric Frenzy Friday, and Show Off Saturday @ Sew She Can.

WIP Wednesday - March 25, 2015

I have been working a lot on my computer lately giving each of my current patterns a face lift (with new graphics and layouts) and finishing up a few new patterns (I just released Pike's Peak in two sizes), but I have been able to sneak away to my sewing room some.  Here are some updates on two Work-In-Progresses I have going on:

Irish Twist QAL by Melissa Corry (Happy Quilting)

This weeks assignment was to applique stitch the petals onto the petal blocks.  Even though I am making the wall size version of the quilt, I decided to replace all of the modern patchwork blocks with the appliqued petal blocks (mostly because I have only tried applique once or twice and I wanted to make more than one block).  

I used Heat and Bond Lite to hold down the petals and a fun blanket-like stitch on my Bernina to sew them on.  The pattern of the stitches went like this:

1. A forward stitch along on the outer edge of the petal
2. A stitch in and out of the petal area forming the blanket part of the stitch
3. A backwards stitch along the outer edge of the petal and 
4. A forward stitch along the outside of the petal. 

Around the outside of the petal, each "stitch" is really 3 stitches on top of one another which gives the stitching a more bold look, which I really like.  The stitch is number 720 on my Bernina 710.

Technicolor Galaxy Skill Builder by Pile O'Fabric

I put off starting this quilt until after QuiltCon because of the craziness before and frankly being a little scared and intimidated by the pattern.  I think that I have made good progress and I now can say that the hardest part of this quilt a long is picking the colors and just starting.  Once I actually stopped stalling and started cutting fabric, this part of the quilt top came together pretty easily.  

I am off to make the bias tape now for the "lead" in the stained glass section of the quilt.  I am nervous about this step too, but I will be diving into it this weekend.

I am very happy to link up with Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts, Needle and Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation, and WIP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced.

Irish Chain Twist Quilt-a-long - Improv Piecing Units

Melissa Corry (Happy Quilting) runs some great quilt-a-longs.  The last one I was able to take part in was her Star Surround quilt-a-long and that was before I started blogging (so it has been a couple of years).  I love Irish Chain quilts and Melissa's version looked like such fun, I had no choice but to join in.

I am making the wall size (my walls in my sewing room really need some more color) and am using scraps from Bonnie & Camille's lines from Ruby all the way through Daysail.  I am pairing the prints with some Kona Navy as a background instead of my typical white.

This week's assignment was to make some Improv Piecing Units and they went together very easily.

Have you taken part in any good quilt-a-longs recently?