A Faith Circle Finish ~ A While in the Making

Wow! Sometimes there are those quilts that you just don't think are ever going to get finished - as much as you want them to. They sit neatly folded in your sewing room just taunting you. This appliqued wonky disappearing 4-patch is one such quilt.

Wonky disappearing 4-patch with applique borders

It started innocently enough with the selection of an easy quilt block, the disappearing 4-patch. I knew I wanted my Faith Circle partners to use a soft color palette to make these blocks, and to add a bit of whimsy, I wanted the blocks to be wonky. Thinking this might be a good opportunity to try my hand at writing a quilt block tutorial I snapped lots of pictures of the construction process and wrote up the directions. (Tutorial can be found here.) I like to point out that I did not create this quilt block, I only wrote up a tutorial for it.

Once the blocks arrived I just knew they were the perfect candidate for my first applique border. 

Applique borders under construction

I combined pattern elements from several different sources to come up with a flowering vine to surround the quilt blocks. Whimsical flowers was the look I was after. Naively I figured it would take me about a month of sewing to get the borders all stitched down using machine applique. 

Machine applique on whimsical floral borders

In reality it took me five months of stop and go work to get the borders complete. For some reason they just seemed to be an overwhelming task. Finally they were finished and the quilt top was assembled! Next up...how to quilt it. Over the summer months I had collected a few books on free motion quilting using your home sewing machine. I wrote up a blog post about my adventures in developing my quilting skills that can be found here.

As you can see in this picture the Loops and Poppies quilt design is so nice when the quilt is freshly washed and dried...there is just something so appealing about a nice, crinkly quilt :o)

Just look at this great texture!

Here's a look at the entire quilt all finished. It turned out exactly as I pictured in my head and I'm so happy with it!

Wonky disappearing 4-patch with applique borders

For the back I took two extra blocks that were not needed on the front, chopped them up, and created a ribbon. Then, I added large cuts of fabric on either side to finish out the scrappy back.

Quilt back

This quilt is on it's way to Restore Innocence where it will hopefully bring comfort and warmth to a young woman in need of it. I'll leave you with one final picture...I just discovered this great tree behind our fence - it makes a perfect quilt display!

Quilt in a tree