Kindred Spirits

Kindred spirits, the name of my Sewcial Bee Sampler is done! This is a Quilt Along designed and hosted by Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell that started in the summer of 2017. I started the blocks about six months later when my friend Tish @tishnwonderland asked if I'd like to make them with her and her husband We made the first blocks on January 1, 2018.

I never realized until after I was cropping this photo, how perfect the bed of orange leaves are under the quilt!

 

We made a few over the next few months, sewing 'together' sometimes texting as we sewed, sometimes FaceTiming. Tish lives in West Virginia, and I am in Ontario. We first met in a New Quilt Bloggers group back in 2015, but we have met up in real life a few times. She's most definitely a kindred spirit: love of quilting, love of free-motion quilting especially, love of pibbles (at the time she had two pitties, brothers, and I had one, Rocco), a love of nature, and reading, and more.

I took these two photos in a favourite place near my house, Kennedy Woods. This first area by the parking lot is called The Sugar Bush because of these massive sugar maples throughout it.

After nearly finishing writing this post, I realize I have never shown the flimsy! The last photo was on the design wall, deciding upon an inner border of orange or green. Well, clearly you see I went with the green. Here is the flimsy. I always like to see the flimsy and the finish as a quilt really comes to life when quilted and bound.

So when it came time to name the quilt, I wanted a name that evoked softness, maybe a bit of romance, summer, fond memories, all related to the mostly soft tones in the quilt. However, Kindred Spirits came to me, and I think it does all of those things, well, without the romance between Tish and me, though romance can and hopefully does occur between kindred spirits all the time. It evokes fond memories: of summer, though we started it in frosty January, of fun and rewarding time spent in making these blocks and in talking with Tish, of the original name of the sampler and the intent it was offered as a way to connect and share. I should mention that Sharon and Maureen were blown away by the amount of participation that summer. The bond that happens when humans connect on multiple levels is profound, and this quilt reminds me of that. When I finished up the last several blocks in October, we'd just come back from our Maritimes trip where the inn in which we stayed on Prince Edward Island was called Kindred Spirits, after Anne and Diana of Anne of Green Gables. And now I have the soft bed of faded orange leaves to add another layer (ha, pun not originally intended, but it's a good one😉) of good memories along with the woods itself.

Full-on flat shot from our upper deck -- no wind today! It's been ridiculous all week.

The back:

A note about this almost-perfect backing fabric. It has marinated for many years in my Happiness Vault (Tracie's coinage of where my backings and Christmas stash live). There are small pops of soft yellow in fabric line I used on the front, and there is purple and green, so it was pretty good I felt.

The binding took me several tries. It needed to work with the back, so I immediately thought of a purple, but the purple had to be in the berry range because of the front. I tried several from my purple yardage but nothing was quite right. Then I thought, what about my Island Batik stash? I have a ton of shades and tones of purple, but I needed a ½ yard and many have been cut into from the years of being an ambassador. But I found this one! 

(I interrupt this post to show you the quilt where a little chunk was used. Made in the summer of 2019, this was given to a dear man who had quite the profound effect on my life, unbeknownst to either of us at the time. It's a post worth rereading, gave me quite the pause for several reasons, one of which was that I talked about kindred spirits in that post!)🤯

Several great quilt shots are in that post, even a couple in trees!

Back to the batik, which has pink pops throughout which, when I set it alongside the quilt front, picked up the pink pops in the fabric line. Yes, I had cut into it for that quilt, but batiks are 44-45" wide and have no selvage other than basically a thicker thread, so seven and a half cuts were plenty!

The cloth label with quilt detail

About that detail: this is the first time I've used a bamboo batt (noted on the label). It's another that has marinated for years, ten to be exact,😳(I have the bill tucked in with it) waiting for the right quilt. I picked it up, an excellent deal, at the Port Charlotte, Florida, quilt show vendor section when we used to spend winters down there, from a shop that was my favourite. It's a king size so I still have a lot left for another quilt or two.

First pass, as shown on Instagram Wednesday afternoon

I did stitch in the ditch (SITD)for a couple of reasons. I usually do this except on comfort quilts, which most often get a large all-over meander. When the quilt is for me, or for sale or as a commission I also stitch in the ditch because it stabilizes the quilt, but more than that, for me, I like the look of stitched down seams. For this one, I stitched around the border, the sashing and the cornerstones, and the outer edges of each block. I did not do any SITD within the blocks. I went with my much-loved swirls with hooks all-over, keeping them fairly large, about ⅜" - ½" spacing. It is within keeping with the soft feminine theme to the quilt.

I mentioned this on Instagram yesterday: the fact that we don't talk enough imho about lint, or the lack thereof, with polyester thread. When I last had Avril, my HandiQuilter Avanté, in for service, the tech asked if I used cotton or polyester for quilting. I said mainly cotton, which is true. Well, it really does gunk up the machine, more than we can get at with our little brushes. Now, I still prefer cotton, both for piecing and quilting in all honesty, but each time I quilt with Superior So Fine, I am blown away by the lack of lint, much as I am blown away by the amount of it when using cotton. It's perhaps 20% of the amount there would be after a bobbin change when using cotton. And I always always use polyester (Bottom Line) in my bobbin, often cotton of various brands, in the top.

Final pass and ready to unload last night, always such a thrill

The above photo also gives you a closeup look at the two greens I used, one for sashing and one for the inner border. There is no inner border on the original design, but I felt it needed one to separate it from the outer border. Neither of the greens are part of Maureen's line, neither of them are even Art Gallery Fabrics! The sashing is Bohemia Lace Bird by The Henley Studio for Makower Fabrics UK, and the inner border is Bird Song by Pat Sloan for Benartex Designer Fabrics. Even the outer border, though it is AGF and one of Maureen's, is not her Fleet and Flourish line which is what I used for all the blocks, a fat quarter bundle I received as a 3-month subscription one year for Christmas from my husband. And the super-soft blues, greens, tans on white is Timeless Treasures! I absolutely LOVE combining different fabric lines and ages of fabric!

Here you can see how the backing does work well with the colours and tones on the front. This is under a cloudy sky too, so there is a bit of a blue cast here.

One last straight-on shot, keeping it real, in our autumn-flavoured back yard. Ah, for the bananas, cannas, elephant ears and green leaves! I have a new quilt under which to snuggle until then! It feels wonderful to have another of my UFOs off the 'Projects Half Done' list. It also feels wonderful to have used up entirely or almost entirely all of the fabrics used in this quilt!

Quilt Stats:

Size: 74.5" x 74.5"

Pattern: Sewcial Bee Sampler by Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell
Fabric: Fleet & Flourish by Maureen Cracknell for AGF, background is Seasonal Portraits by Judy Niemeyer for Timeless Treasures; sashing is Bird Song by Pat Sloan for Benartex Designer Fabrics; inner border is Bohemia Lace Bird by The Henley Studio for Makower Fabrics UK, outer border is Garden Dreamer by Maureen Cracknell for AGF, and the binding is Electric Desert by Jackie Kunkel for Island Batik Fabric.

Batting: 50/50 bamboo/cotton Kyoto blend by Moda Fabrics

Backing: Scarlet by Ro Gregg for Northcott, Quest for a Cure

Quilted: on Avril, 162 286 stitches

Threads: pieced with various cottons; quilted with So Fine by Superior Threads 100% polyester colour 401; Bottom Line by Superior Threads in the bobbin

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