Suburbia

I am pleased to present another finish, one that's been on the stack of USOs for quite some time! USOs are what I call Un-Started Objects, those kits or chunks or bundles of fabrics one gathers with pattern for a quilt you intend to make almost right away...except that 'right away' doesn't happen because other projects, be they must-do's or squirrels or quilt alongs or guild activities, or quilt courses and so on and so forth, get in the way. I have rather a few USOs, ahem. This, however, is no longer one of them!

This was a bundle of fat quarters with accompanying pattern from I believe bluprint, who took over from Craftsy. These tone-on-tone boundless fabrics are beautiful: the hand is so soft, as is the look and texture with a quite floral that undulates through several tones of one colour, so they 'read' solid.

I walked down to the end of my street, just ten houses, to a neighbour whose property includes a narrow strip that leads down many steps to the beach. We are on a bit of a cliff here on Torquay Drive, which is one of the halves of our loop that is connected to the main road by a short road aptly named Cliffside. 

View of my Lake Erie from the top of the cliff. You can see his little covered viewing deck half way down the cliff, the beach far below, just to the left of the deck. Kingsville Harbour is in the distance, top right.

Lower deck with last steps down to the beach. Isn’t that weeping willow spectacular?

As I said in the post with the flimsy, this is a fat quarter bundle with pattern that I bought from Craftsy.

Here’s a straight-on shot back at my house:

The light was perfect this evening to show the rich colours of these blenders. 

And the back:

This was another of a few chunks of yardage I bought during that fabric therapy trip to Fabricland that Dayna took me on during the time between my mum’s death and her funeral. Another Henry Glass fabric on sale of which I picked up three metres, thinking of using it for a quilt back. I am loving seeing some spaces in the backing Vault of Happiness😄 there is just 1 metre left by half the width of fabric.

I loaded it sideways onto Avril my longarm, because of the long (very long!) vertical seams. This way the seams run parallel to the bars which means less stress on them as I roll the quilt along.

The backing was pieced along the lengthwise grain too, which gives a quilt more stability, as that grain doesn’t stretch like the crosswise grain. Therefore the back has a long vertical seam as well. This meant for an ‘interesting’ angle when quilting in my initials and the recipient’s name!

As you can see I quilted it with an all-over fat meander. I love quilting that motif. I used Essential by Connecting Threads, in Persian, a blue that blended in well over every colour but the creams. Yet it isn’t jarring there, just flows and sinks in. It will sink in more once it’s laundered, as I used Hobbs black batting 80/20 cotton/polyester. I had two chunks, each about 62 inches, one about 28" wide the other 34". Perfect for Frankenbatting!

For binding I used another blender, this one from Connecting Threads in navy. It finishes off the quilt quite nicely, toning in with the colours on the front as well as the backing. 

My cloth labels supply is dwindling, but this one goes well with the quilt’s theme.

This quilt was intended for myself. I fell in love with boundless fabrics’  blenders botanical, and this simple graphic design that showed them off so well. However, when I was making it, I slowly started to feel that it could be the perfect quilt for Brianne‘s boyfriend, Jordan. She told me a couple years ago how much he liked the quilts I had made her, and how interested he was in the fabrics and the quilting that I did, that he’d study them quite intently.

A wonderful wooden double swing—what a place to sit and lake haze!

She said that if I ever felt so inclined, she knew he would really love to have one. Well, as you know serendipity seems to influence my life so very often, though sometimes I don’t think it’s serendipity; I think it’s that my energies and the universe energies align. Jordan and I have recently bonded over, first of all, our love for Summer McIntosh, the phenomenal young Canadian swimmer who I have followed for a little over two years. Was I surprised when Brianne told me he “blew her wig off “ when they were watching an F1 race and when Summer McIntosh came onscreen he made a comment about her, how good of a swimmer she is. She is sponsored by Red Bull, who sponsors the F1 team he loves. Brianne knew that I loved her. She did not know that Jordan had been following her as well!

My phone stand and the timer feature worked well for me to do the photo shoot alone!

So it went from there: the World Aquatics Championships happened shortly thereafter with Summer winning five medals, four gold and one bronze, so he and I texted back-and-forth several times. I also got him to pay attention to Molly Carlson, a Canadian high diver who is also sponsored by Red Bull. She has a very good Instagram account where she talks openly about her struggles with anxiety as well as shows her dives from up close and personal—20 metres up is HIGH! And then this past weekend he sent me a note about another phenomenal young Canadian athlete, Victoria Mboko, who had just beaten the top seeded tennis player to go to the semi-final. Victoria ended up winning the National Bank Open, the Canadian tennis tournament, in Montreal! 

Hard as it is to let this one go, I cannot keep every quilt I make; I do have quite a collection already! So this quilt is going to go to Jordan for Christmas. The colours are perfect for his home and Brianne thinks he’ll be blown away to the point of tears when he opens it. He doesn’t read my blog so I feel safe he won’t have a clue about this.😉

My initials, as per usual, on the lower edge on black fabric

The fabric bundle of 20 is all used up but for three fat quarters (the pattern calls for 17). The way the fat quarters are cut up uses the entire piece so that is good. What isn’t so good is that you end up with 65 (I think) pairs of HSTs:

I started sewing them back together as leaders and enders. I have 25 done.

I’m thinking of a cushion cover to go with the quilt or to keep for myself.

Quilt Stats:

Size: 58.5" x 60"

Pattern: Suburbia by Cozy Quilt Design
Fabric: Craftsy boundless blenders botanical 

Batting: Hobbs 80/20 black cotton/polyester 

Backing: Black, White and Currant by Color Principle for Henry Glass & Co.

Quilted: on Avril, 44 282 stitches

Threads: pieced with Exquisite polyester on my Bernina; quilted with Essential cotton; Bottom Line in the bobbin

Linking up

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