Pretty Petals - A Finished Quilt

Today, I present Pretty Petals - a collaboration between guild members for a lovely human being! It was so hard to keep this a secret the last few months!

My friend Jessica Levitt founded our beloved Central Jersey Modern Quilt Guild in 2011, and led it for two years. She now serves as Vice President. Our guild has seen the passion and hard work she consistently puts forth, and for all of that (especially for her two years as President) we thank her with this quilt - just because!

27 members made blocks in a predetermined color scheme. As I received them, I narrowed down what colors were needed. We were getting a whoooole lot of blue and not enough purple at one point (there's never enough purple ;) though I like how it makes it pop. Oh, and guess which block is mine!). I cannot at all take credit for the whole quilt, but I did chose the design (tutorial by Tracey Jay Quilts and her Scrappy Sprouts quilt inspiration here), colors, backing, and binding, piece it together, quilt it, and machine bind it.

The backing and binding are a warm print from Zen Chic, and I left the selvage in just for kicks. It gives the back a little "pop!" Most members made quick and easy "siggy" blocks (tutorial by P.S. I Quilt). I arranged them in an "XO" format. You can really appreciate this in the far away photo:

For quilting, I really wanted to add a strong element that makes you give the quilt a second look. I pebbled in the sashing in different sizes, and I quilted swirls and "ghost" orange peels into the flowers for the green stems, I used Aurifil 12 weight green thread for the first time (with my walking foot and a universal needle). I love the chunky texture the thread creates! For the rest of the quilting, I used a natural white Aurifil.

 Yep, mine's that purple one. AMH, Kate Spain, Simply Color...

We presented this quilt to Jess at the August meeting. She was thrilled!! That's her on the right and me on the left.

Sewing many different peoples' blocks together certainly has its challenges (such as seam allowances and thread thicknesses). However, I love how this quilt, which Jess had pinned previously, is beautiful, very scrappy, and functional. Luckily she's already been cuddling with it:

Making quilts for people just because is so fun! :) Giving it to her was totally my favorite part of the August meeting. Thanks to all the guild members for making such an exciting quilt happen. We have such amazingly talented members!

 

Happy sister! You know there had to be a photo outtake.^^

Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday, Crazy Mom Quilts, TGIFF,
Fabric Tuesday