Bloggers Quilt Festival Time

I had this little project started, when Amy sent out that email reminding us of the upcoming "Blogger Quilt Festival". Whew, I had to step it up, to finish in time for it.   Day and night, night and day, even on a trip to New Mexico to see the International Balloon Fiesta... My machine was with me, and running every spare moment! 

That being said, here is what I was up to...

My favorite Scrappy Quilt!

I know many of you know what it is. When I posted this photo recently,

I heard from quite a few of you, that you knew just what I was up to!

:-)

And right you were.

For those who needed another clue... Well, they swim in pods!

Yes they do!

Bonnie Hunters "Orca Bay". You knew it all along.

I downloaded all the instructions a couple of years ago, when it was a mystery quilt (it's now in Bonnie's String Fling book). Needless to say, it was no longer a mystery to me. The only real mystery was, when was I going to start on it!   LOL!!

Once I did, I was hooked.

From these crazy fun 3 1/2" squares pieced on phone book pages,

to the wonderful secondary designs that emerged as I stitched.

Just one problem, after cutting out and stitching 448 black and 448 white hour glass units, 350 black and 350 white triangle units, another 700 black (oh yeah,  you read it right), 112 black, 112 white, and 56 green 2 1/2"squares.

 Those 64 green 5-1/2" blocks that were string pieced and the 72 purple 3-1/2" ones...

I decided that I loved it so much, that it was going to need to be much larger than the  74.5 x 84.5 quilt it was.

Back to work I went cutting and stitching, not one more entire quilt, but two!
I can't even make myself do the math for all three now!
(tee hee)

You see, I wanted a big quilt. A really big quilt.

So big in fact that it lead to another problem.

My bed is a California King that sits very high off the floor. I wanted this to be a bedspread, but my long arm, can only accommodate about a 100" wide quilt, and that is stretching its capability. What to do, what to do???

                                       Remember those Orcas?

I dug out my old McKenna Ryan "Rhythm of the Sea" pattern for them.

With the use of my favorite, Quilt As You Go (QAYG) method, I was able to add extra borders, to this to get the width I needed. You can find additional posts on stretching a king size quilt, here on my blog!
:-)

It really ended up being a little bigger than what was necessary, but I wanted to keep enough of the design continuing on, under the border.

So there you have it, a super king size scrappy quilt!

                        The final size is 125.5" wide x 117" long. It's a biggie.

I am thrilled to say, the only fabric I had to purchase was the 12 yards of backing I used. Thanks to Bonnie Hunter, I was able to use up scraps for this guy!

It really is amazing just how much Bonnie has taught us, in maximizing the use of fabric scraps. 

Bonnie was in Denver the day this was finished. I so wish I had been in her class.

The waiting list was long, and I just didn't make the cut!  LOL, but I have my piece of Bonnie right here, and thrilled I am.

Hope you have enjoyed my journey thru Orca Bay.

You can see more from Bonnie at

http://www.quiltville.com/

She shares loads of free patterns on her site, as well as sharing all her scrap saving tips!  Check it out, I'll bet you have a quilt or two worth of scraps in you sewing room too!

:-)

 A very big thanks to Amy for hosting this wonderful hop. Where we all get a chance to see old friends, meet new ones and just relish in the eye candy, that everyone has to share.

Ahhhhhh...life is good!
:-)
Make sure you visit all the other bloggers participating! You won't be sorry!

Stretching a quilt to fit a California King Bed

Here is a quilt that I made for my son for Christmas this year. I used the BQ pattern from Maple Island Quilts that has been in my file for quite some time. When I first looked at it, the directions seemed so strange to me, that I put in back in the package, and filed it away. When I picked the fabrics for this quilt, that pattern was the first to come to mind. I really needed something that would allow a large scale print to show up. So I dug it out and took the time to read it over. It really wasn't as difficult as I was trying to make it in my mind. There are a lot of different fabric requirements, but that is to accommodate a variety of sizes. Gheesh, when I started the sewing, it was a dream to piece. I have found a new love for 18" blocks. The quilt comes together very fast, which is what I needed especially at holiday time.

 I love matching pillows and shams, but I know he's a guy, and it's not manly to have all that fru-fru on the bed. What can I say, I am not a guy and I like it!  :-) After all it has cars on it, doesn't that count for something?????

I made the matching bed skirt too. Meadow Lyon Designs even had the perfect classic car pantograph to complete things. Not like I could have planned things better, but the pantograph was a perfect fit with the 18" blocks, and I was able to get a complete run without loosing any of the design, either side to side or top to bottom. Who ever has this happen? It was a stroke of luck I know, and I counted my blessings. I am happy to report that my son loved it, as well as hubby, who wishes he had one too.

Now for the stretching part. I have an HQ16 which I absolutely love. My only limitation is that my frame is only 10 foot which is 120 inches. Take off a few on each side and the room to accommodate the actual machine, and I come up a little short for these California King size beds. So I have found that by adding a BIG binding I can deal with that. If you notice my black and red stripes running up and down, that is actually my binding.  After my quilt is all quilted, I  build my stripe set as wide as I need, to get the added width I need. Then I sandwich it with my batting and backing (note: backing only - I cut about an inch wider than the front) and stitch the bottom together keeping those edges even with each other. I then stitch the top of the "binding" I am creating, including the batting layer to the top of my quilt. I haven't had an issue with the extra batting in the seam, but if you prefer you could trim it out. I flip my backing over, iron things all flat, and fold under the extra backing then stitch that down on my seam line on the back of the quilt, it really isn't any different than sewing down a binding at that point. I stitched in the ditch along the color changes to hold he batting in place to finish it off. Voila! I have a quilt big enough for that California King now.

This is not a new trick for me. Here is a Bonnie Hunter's scrap quilt, Pineapple Blossoms that I stretched to fit my bed size. Using up my 2 1/2" strips was perfect for this scrap quilt.  This will give you plenty of opportunity to play with quilt tops now won't it?

 Enjoy!!