Little Lucy

 Oh, happy day! My little Lucy Boston, Patchwork of the Crosses wall hanging is finished and hanging on the wall! I swear, every quilt I make looks fantastic on my golden yellow walls.

 This piece started in December 2014 as a traveling project to take on our trip to Tanzania. It was such a long flight, I knew I'd have lots of time to stitch. I met a lovely Brit in the JFK airport who wished she had brought her hand stitching with her, too. 

The fussy cut centers were fun to work on and were done by May of 2015. I won the Union Jack needle case from Helen/Archie the wonder dog a few years ago. How appropriate for this very English project! I'm so glad I decided to purchase the papers (1" honeycombs and squares) and a fussy cutting template from Paper Pieces.

When it came time to fill in the sashing, motivation was hard to come by. I pieced together small groupings of cream and blue, but there are other ways to assemble this top. This worked for me because it kept the project portable. I used 50 wt Aurifil for most of the piecing and all of the quilting.

 

I finally finished the top in early July 2016.

Bear with me while I document each block...

 If you click on one, you will see the free motion machine quilting.

 Clearly, I had fun fussy cutting! All the fabric is Kate Spain's Fandango line except the Kona solids in snow and aqua.

 Compare the yellow pieces above and below. I started out making little feathers in these pieces, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it in the busier prints. So every other block has the simpler design below.

The center block is my favorite.

Many thanks to Angela Walters for the confidence to tackle this quilting!

I fussy cut the binding to take advantage of the scallop print.

Free motion machine quilting was done on my Bernina 153. I used a light mint green Auriful #2800 in the colorful parts and creamy #2311 in the background.

No, maybe this one is my favorite block!

The ribbon candy quilting in the negative space wasn't my first choice. I tried an overlapping figure 8, which was just not working out. (I need more practice.) After working my way around two blocks, I realized it had to go. Have you ever noticed that 10 minutes of machine quilting takes over an hour to rip out?!! In the end, I think it was worth it.

Since this was all hand pieced, I considered hand quilting, too. That would have taken me another two years to finish instead of just two days! I'm so happy she's done!

Little Lucy

35" X 35"

Started: December 2014

Top done: July 1, 2016

Quilted: July 27-28, 2016

Bound: July 29, 2016

Exhibited at Ninigret Quilters Show
Westerly, RI, October 13-15, 2017
Best Pieced, Small Quilt, Master Division
Best of Master Division
Best of Show

Exhibited at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival
Hampton, VA,  February 22-25, 2018

Exhibited at MQX- New England
Manchester, NH, April 11-14, 2018

Exhibited at Narragansett Bay Quilters Association
North Kingstown, RI, April 21-22, 2018