Welcome to Canada!

So glad that the quilt finally read red (lol get it?) in these outside pics! This is my second finish in the new sewing space, second Hands2Help finish.  Let's toss it over a bush, shall we?

I am SO excited to tell you that this quilt was pieced entirely on my Featherweight girls.  They shared it.  💕 The backing was pieced together on them as well.  It went from a pretty cool flimsy to a perfectly cuddly finished quilt!  Love the texture.

Probably the most accurate colour for the rich red/burgundy

I quilted it with an all-over design of Christina Cameli's called "Cherish".  It kind of just happened as I made my first swoop on the quilt top.  I really like this one, and it is just a small step up from meandering, so a good 'next quilt' for Avril and I to get back in sync.

Quilting detail. As I quilt, I think flower, maybe peacock or rooster comb, and then add a couple echoes. Can you spot the mistake?  I left it as is; the stitches were so tiny there that they won't come out, and once it's washed, you'll get nothing but texture.

The back:

You can see the design a bit better here.  Yes it's a cobbled together backing again, my favourite kind! The vibrant orange, purple and red leaves fabric is from a favourite quilt of mine, "Autumn Glory", that I appliquéd over many many coffee time get-togethers with my Dad. You can see it here on a Throwback Thursday post.  The jewels fabric at the bottom is from the backing of a kaleidoscope I did in a class with Deb Tilley years ago. She is a portégé of Paula Nadelstern's. Neither piece was big enough, so I found another purpley fat quarter to add to each end which is old too, but oddly it reminds me of a Sarah Watts design for Cotton & Steel.  Finally the strip in the middle is a piece off a 4-yard cut I snagged for a potential backing last Fall when we were in Ohio at Pink Doxies Julie's Fall Retreat and, of course, went shopping in Amish Country.

Notice the strip of Kaffe fabric there?! Left over from the Three-Quarter Patch Tote I made for a Craftsy review. I use that bag 4X/week to take my yoga stuff to classes I teach!

I bound it with 5 strips that were already cut for a different project and then not used (how convenient) of an RJR Handspray.  I've used it for bindings on a few quilts, love.

After washing, snuggly central, ha:

Here is the back after washing:

You can see the design again here.

I quilted two words and two symbols in the bottom row of the quilt:

Welcome with a heart

and

Peace with a maple leaf

I had troubles with the thread for the last row of the quilt, and it started when I ran out of my own self-wound bobbin and just threw in a pre-wound one I'd got in a sampler from Superior Threads.  I love their thread.  I think I just needed to monkey around more with the tension, but this bobbin thread switch wreaked havoc with that final row.  I ended up going over the words on my Bernina with the Fufus thread, a Güterman in the bobbin, because I was unhappy with the Avanté tension. But I didn't rip out the Avanté one.  As you can see, it did sink in fine after washing.

I will be dropping it off at the Mosque School of Ehlul Bayt, who is accepting all the basics for setting up a household, after yoga on Friday. The City of Windsor has taken in just under 1400 refugees see info here, and I hope that this quilt will be the beginning of me helping out however I can.  I plan to swing by the Sexual Assault Centre that same day and take them Kringle Trees.  And now I have a couple of my own family quilts plus one more refugee quilt, a Canada one, to get cracking on!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  original design based on a photo, somewhere...
Size:  50" square; after quilting and washing: "47.75 X 47.25"!
Fabric: scraps; the red is stash bought for a different project, but never used
Batting: thin polyester bought at Zinck's in Ohio
Quilted: on Avril the Avanté
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann; quilted with Floriani Fufus rayon thread, Bottom Line in the bobbin

Linking up:
Sew Fresh Quilts
Quilt Fabrication