Midnight Mystery Finish

This is Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs 2016 mystery quilt.  It was the last quilt quilted on my Avanté before MacGyver disassembled her for storage. 😢 I named the quilt Nine Lives as a nod to the cat fabric and the miles this quilt has travelled, as well as to the reincarnation of every fabric in the quilt to form the one you see before you today!

near the Sarasota Harbor

It is one of my goals on my Q4FAL List.  Yay for a second finish off the list.  It began its life in Kingsville, leftover fabrics from five previous projects: a runner I made for a colleague who was retiring from teaching, fabric left over from my Indianapolis Quilt, cat fabric from a runner for my aunt in England, now passed away, fabric left over from Shamrock, John's quilt, and the green tree bark fabric used as part of the backing left over from a good friend's group effort quilt that I quilted.  I think I also used that green tree bark-type fabric on another quilt.  I finished the flimsy in January here in North Port.

Here are some shots of it hot off the frame, squared, but no binding on, one month ago on November 3:

Isn't that branch just purrr-fect for hanging Nine Lives?!

I've wanted to take a picture of one of my quilts in this tree a block from our former house forEVER.  They've torn down the old boarding house that used to be here, along with one of the huge old black walnut trees...I'm pretty worried this old boy will also be cut down since they are building a condo complex in the boarding house's stead.  I was fighting the wind a bit that day, and to my heart's delight, a guy who stopped at the corner here hopped out of his car and gave me a hand!  Love small town living, I do.

The sun as you can see was exceedingly brilliant that day, so it was hard to get a good shot of the quilting.  So I about-faced, and headed south to the beach a block from this tree.  😊

Duck/goose blind in the distance.

That worked a bit better!

Here's a collage from that lovely day.  We, like much of Canada, and the northern states, had the most incredible warm Fall this year.

Fast forward about three weeks and 1900 km/1200 miles south from that day, and I have the first on a fairly lengthy list of 'to-do's' while in Florida crossed off said list.

I brought down both the floral fabric I used for the stars, and the red kitties in daisies fabric, both Henry Glass Fabrics from 10 years ago, as binding choices. I didn't have enough of the green.  I couldn't decide which one to use, and suddenly remembered, the flanged binding!  Yep, yep, yep.

I kept the quilting relatively simple, doing my 'Zen' jigsaw-shape meander (gives me that watching goldfish ahhh feeling when I quilt this), a little ruler work in the ivory areas inside of which I did another Zen-inducing quilting motif, ribbon candy.  For that I used a cream Essential thread, and for the meander, I used up the rest of a King Tut variegated primary colours thread I used in Brady's I Spy quilt.

Imagine my shock when I pulled it off Avril, laid it down on the floor to admire my work, and discovered I'd missed an entire half of an ivory star surround section!!  Like. How.  Suffice it to say that I was quilting under duress at this point, way too much life drama going on then.

Can you find it?

Luckily, my darling Bernina (with Bella supervising) came to the rescue:

And there, to Bella's extreme dismay and anguish, was the final stages of the end of her happy place (and mine) in our basement sewing space.

But let's not dwell on those upsetting times. Live in the moment and we are very happy and relaxed in our southern sewing space, rest assured!

I like the way this frames the stars

There's the texture-showing shot I want!  On a bed with indirect light from a window.

Of course I had to throw the finished quilt in a Florida tree, this one a southern type of oak I believe.  Black walnut in Kingsville, oak in Sarasota.  Love it!

The back!

The red, 'Happy Christmas' by Northcott, is what I picked up at Alma Sue's Quilts in Sarasota this past spring in her $5/yard sale section.  I probably could have pieced the yardage to make the entire back of the same fabric, but I wanted a little more interest, so I used up the green.

The label.  Well both, ha.

Had to rip the binding back on both sides to insert the Ika Print mmm! quilts label, sigh, not the first time I've had to do that!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  Midnight Mystery by Meadow Mist Designs
Size: 72 X 71.5" (haven't washed it yet)
Fabric:  scraps and leftovers, except for the Northcott on the back
Batting: Warm n Natural
Quilted: on my Avanté; forgot to write down the stitches count (or I haven't found where I did, lol)
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann; quilted with Superior King Tut (and about the last quarter in Aurifil variegated as I ran out!) and also with Essential in cream.

This one will live with me; although it was not intended to read Christmas, it certainly has that air about it, and so it will add to the festive vibe in the house this month!

Linking up with
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Crazy Mom Quilts
She Can Quilt (for the finish along wrap-up)  Sidenote: did you see that Leanne is one of two new hosts for the New Quilt Bloggers 2017? She and Beth of Cooking Up Quilts (who I just happened to have hugged in person!) are hosting along with Yvonne of Quilting Jet Girl.  Another personal connection here: Leanne used to live, not even 2 years ago, in my hometown, Edmonton, Alberta. 💞