Sunshine on My Shoulders

Another one to check off my Q1FAL List! Argh; this post was supposed to be written this morning but this day just went off the rails! How does that happen?!

Sunshine On My Shoulders (literally ha!) in the setting sun

I had hoped to take the quilt out to Point Pelee National Park for its final shoot, set against what I'd heard was spectacular ice. However, MacGyver had another idea, which didn't work out because of high waters and no public beach access, so he took me a little further along the lake, by Wheatley, to this beach, Marentette Beach, which actually did say 'closed' but I could fit under the barricade no problem...so did he with just a small eye roll! Which provided the above shot. He did a good job of hiding his feet, didn't he?!

It's a bit washed-out in that photo; the 6:30 pm setting sun was shining on it. There is a pond right behind me, a large one; in front of me you can see a glimpse of Lake Erie's blue waters behind the quilt. A cool promontory.

So here she is right by Lake Erie's edge, better, truer colours.

Same quilt, laid flat on the beach! Doesn't the angle of the light make a huge difference in colours? This one is the truest.

My aunt celebrated her 80th birthday at the end of April 2017. Yep, another late quilt for another aunt with a special birthday. This would make three, four if you count my own mother's 80th birthday quilt?! All a tad late. Auntie Norma is my mum's BFF, and she loves blue, or buh-LOO, as my mum says with derision. My mum detests blue, loves green. I, too, love blue, paired with green, it happens to be my favourite colour combo! These two women, a blue-lover and a green-lover, have been friends since their teens. When you are 81 or nearly 81, that's a long friendship. They even married brothers!

As I mentioned in the flimsy finish post, I bought this as a kit off Craftsy. The quilt pattern included with the kit was similar to this, but I knew the Lintott pattern was a better one, having made it before, would result in less waste, and make a larger quilt. I even have one left over charm pack AND a larger quilt!

I did a relaxing, meditative jigsaw or ghost shapes meander in the background...

swoop-dee-swoops in the stars, using the points as my 'dots', and using my BFF curved quilting ruler. I used the larger size 12 curved one (both are from The Quilted Pineapple) to do the blossom in the star centre. For those readers who don't 'do' Instagram, here's a video of me stitching out a blossom:

In the border I did a favourite flower motif, the same one I did as part of the all-over motif I did on my mum's 80th birthday quilt, echoed it, and then added three leaves between each one and some ribbons. It shows up best on the back:

btw remember I said in a previous post that I was using this wide backing from Connecting Threads for the first time, and that I was a little concerned because it felt a bit glossy of a hand, almost like it was coated with something? Yet it quilted up wonderfully, draped terrifically, and after washing, is so cuddly! Yay! Here is the entire back:

The binding worked so well with both front and back, an oldie, make that vintage, piece from my stash, which actually is called 'The Christmas Collection' by Woodrow Studio, silver stars on royal blue.

These are the two threads I used for quilting, Isacord pale blue polyester and Exquisite pale yellow polyester. Avril loved them both, (shocker😉) no issues. They both have a lovely sheen. Exquisite is about half the price of Isacord, and feels identical. I got it at the Bernina shop in Port Charlotte.

I used Warm 'n Natural batting. The evening sun helped show the beautiful texture! It wasn't washed yet here.

A lovely evening sun and shade pic on Marentette Beach. I could have sat there forever and listened to that gentle water...but it wasn't that warm, ha! Like +3?!

Here is the label...

...both the mmm! quilts and the sewn-on one with the details. Interestingly, that label, along with a few others, was a gift from the first aunt I made a quilt for, Blue Ribbon Stars! She'd had them in her stash for... a while!
I sewed the binding to the front, folded it around the quilt sandwich, pressed it, glued it down and stitched in the ditch from the front to catch it down, using Essential cotton thread in Persian Blue.

Of course, when I spied this willow, I had to take a quilt-in-a-tree photo! I love the yellow branches with the yellow fabrics, the blue sky and lake with the blue fabrics in the quilt. Perfection!

And one last freshly-laundered cuddly crinkly quilt shot on our loveseat for your viewing pleasure:

I spy a cat plus quilt waiting to be mailed away also! It gives me a small thrill of satisfaction and excitement seeing the two stacked here waiting to surprise the recipients!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: "Galaxy Quilt" from the book,  More Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott
Size: Pre-quilting:  54X72"; after quilting and washing: 52X68" (whoa!!)
Fabric: Dutch Garden by Boundless
Batting: Warm 'n Natural 100% cotton
Backing: Connecting Threads wide backing
Quilted: on the Avanté, 105 116 stitches
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann cotton; quilted with Isacord pale blue #3951 and Exquisite pale yellow ES627; binding stitched down with Essential cotton 21144 Persian Blue

Linking up:
Crazy Mom Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
TGIFF at Sarah Goer Quilts
Busy Hands Quilts
and with one of the hosts for the Q1FAL
SaveSave