A Lovely Year of Finishes- April is Elementary!

Yay for the end of April, and hopefully the last of the never-ending winter!

I had some fun with my April project.

It all started with a bundle of Eclectic Elements by Tim Holtz, and a few Textured Solids ( really wish I had used more colours).

I made a big pile of Plus blocks which finish at 11"

These blocks are really quick to do, and chain piecing makes them even faster.

I had a few extra blocks after picking a layout I liked, and decided to incorporate them into the back. Which made me remember that Sarah @ Sew What Sherlock? has converted the pieced X and + block to a paper pieced block in three different sizes! Yay Sarah!

So. I made a few of those as well, and a backing was born!

They grey I used for the back is a really nice linen that I got a couple years ago at a local fabric shop.

I had an idea for the quilting the Plus portion of the block right from the start. At a Quilt Show, I bought a really nice variegated spool of thread by Sulky. I haven't used anything but Aurifil for over a year now, but didn't have the colour I needed.

I think my machine has become an Aurifil snob!! I had terrible problems using this new thread. While I had Aurifil 50wt #2600 in the bobbin, I had constant breakage of the Sulky. I used a 90/14 topstitch needle that usually works really well me, but not this time! I then realized that the Sulky was a 30wt, which may have been the problem! 

I used my FMQ foot to avoid turning the quilt so much, so the lines are very organic!! Oddly enough, I had less thread breakage going side to side, rather than up and down.

Once I was finished the Plus sections, I switched to Aurifil, and heaved a sigh of relief!

I do love the colour of the variegated thread though! Yellow, orange, green and a bit of purple which adds a real pop of colour.

  In all the background corners (4 per block), I did a FMQ leaf.

Here is a bit of it on the back, with some thread that needed to be picked out! I had a lot of this on the back!

It took me a whole day to bury all the darn threads.

 Sure don't like that part!

The stripe binding is another print from the Eclectic Elements line, and I think finished off the quilt so nicely.

I tried something new! Labeling quilts just never gets done, so I decided to try a method I saw in somewhere land!

I folded a 6" block into a triangle and added it to a bottom corner and it was sewn in with the binding. I added a decorative machine stitch across the fold of the triangle and hand stitched it to the back after the binding was on.

I think it turned out pretty well, I just need to work on my hand writing next time!

This afternoon I went out to the backyard in my boots to take some pictures!

Elementary measures 57"x68"

I'm happily linking up with Shanna & Melissa.

A Lovely Year of Finishes.