Country Chain and Cross Quilt Complete

It's done, it's done, it's FINALLY done!  Only took three years.  Three years of the Flynn Frame, falling out of the closet every time I opened the door.

I like how it has turned out very much.  Considering it was initially called the "Ugly Brown Quilt"; it turned out great!

The prints in this quilt came from the donated fabric that went through the Great American Smoke-Out.  Remember "fabric lasagna"?  Thank heavens for Febreze and a sunny day.

This quilt is absolute proof that there is no such thing as ugly fabric, only fabric that hasn't been cut into small enough pieces.

80 small scraps and 160 tiny bits of fabric were used in this quilt.  Most of them were unattractive and any number of them were butt-ugly, and yet the quilt is pretty nice.  It's a wonderment!

Country Chain and Knot Quilt - Top Complete!

Finally! I got the Country Chain and Knot quilt all done; all 879 pieces of it. Thank heavens! I *love* how it turned out too. To think I once called this the "Ugly Brown Quilt" lol.



















And, it will almost certainly look even better when it's all quilted and bound, because they *always* do! I'm SO glad this is all put together. I feel like I've been working on it for months, though really, it has only taken me a few weeks. Now I just have to make the quilt sandwich and stipple it up. Piece of cake. NOT!

Country Chain and Knot Quilt - Down to Four Rows

Well, the end is in sight. From 879 pieces, I've got it down to just four big ones! All I have left to do is press the four rows, pin them together, then stitch them up. I can't wait until it's all sandwiched up and ready to stipple. This will be by far the largest quilt I've ever tried to stipple on my Bernina; I hope it doesn't give me too much trouble.

















At least is looks like I got all the red chains going in the right direction, though I did have to undo the seam between two blocks because the sash and cornerstone were both 1/4 inch too wide. Now how on earth did that happen?

Country Chain and Knot Quilt - Blocks Complete

This is what I did this week instead of blogging. I finally got all 20 blocks of this Country Chain and Knot Quilt pieced and pressed. There are 40 pieces per block for 800 pieces total. The blocks are laying on top of the brown sashing material, and I'm definitely going to continue the red chains with matching cornerstones.

I've got the blocks laid out so there aren't any squares of the same fabric across the sashing from each other. I was only concerned about the larger squares, not the small squares, those will just have to take their chances. Oops, I can already see a problem with my chains! That lower left block is 90 degrees off. I'd better fix that before it gets sewn incorrectly. I'm really liking it so far. I think a nice golden brown small stipple will really bring it together nicely.

The back is going to be made out of the red material. I can't decide if I want the back stippling to be a matching red thread or the same golden brown as the top. (All you quilters out there, what do you think? Am I a good enough stippler to make a contrasting thread look ok?)

Putting the sashing fabric beneath the blocks was great for taking pictures, but now I have to figure out how to get the material out from under the blocks without messing them up my organization. Hmmm. Maybe I'll just finish up my gift for my secret pal first. If only I could post a picture of it. I had no idea when I signed up for the secret pal thing how irritating it would be that I can't share pictures. It's a really nice quilty gift and I think it's turning out very well. And I'd better not say anything else. Arrgh!

Country Chain and Knot Quilt

Well, it took me longer than I thought it would, but I finally have my Country Chain and Knot Quilt blocks down to 3 pieces each, for a total of 60 pieces for 20 blocks. That's down a lot from the 800 piece total just a few short weeks ago! Now I just have to sew the middle row to the top and bottom rows. That might take some time to pin as there are 4 matching seams that I would really like to have line up nicely. lol

I'm pleased with the brown suede-look fabric I chose for the sashing. I think it makes a nice contrast with the blocks, but will also help marry the disparate fabrics together. At least, I hope so! The cornerstones are going to be in the red fabric, and will be the same size as the large red pieces in the block. I think using red to continue the chain will help tie the blocks together structurally and keep them from visually floating on the suede.

I'm beginning to think I might actually finish this quilt during February. I'm looking forward to many hours of stippling zen on this one.

Precision Piecing my Scrap Country Chain and Knot Quilt

I got lots of quilting done this weekend - highly productive. I have renamed the "*Ugly* Brown Quilt" to "Scrap Country Chain and Knot Quilt" because it's not going to be ugly after all; in fact, it's turning out quite nicely. What a relief!. I really like the chain and knot pattern, even though each block has 40 separate pieces. I'm making a 4x5 quilt, so that's a total of 800 pieces for just the blocks. I'm also sashing it with cornerstones, for another 79 pieces.

I got this far on Friday. Hardly any of the tan fabric was sewn to any of the mini 4 patches (top row). The red/tan and green/tan blocks were easy since they could be strip pieced, but the minis and the large patch (center bottom) had to be done in onsies and twosies depending on the size of the donated fabric. I kept the tan fabric in strips for sewing and cut them apart afterwards. I'm always trying to improve my piecing accuracy and this helps a *lot*. I use the same technique for sashing blocks, then I can trim and square the sash/block at the same time.

This was really a terrific pattern for using up lots of disparate (OK, kinda ugly) bits of fabric. In fact, it uses up 13 different donated fabrics - remember the ones that had to be Febreezed outdoors because of their odor? The coordinating tan fabric is actually a Christmas fabric (who knew?) that I got at the Christmas Goose in Las Vegas. I brought all my little bits with me and picked the one that fought the least. lol The dark red and green fabrics that comprise the chains are Hobby Lobby standards.

I decided the easiest way to piece this block was to create the chunks for a standard nine patch, which I got done today. They are displayed in their proper places above. This means I'm down to about 180 pieces from 800 for just the blocks. It's actually starting to look doable! Also I used the Precision Piecing pinning techniques to align my blocks and all of them turned out deadly accurate, which was very nice on such a large project.