Friday's Photo Finish

I am so excited that it's Friday. I FINALLY finished my Michael Miller Fabric Challenge quilt for the Modern Quilt Guild.

It took a while to get here but I am so glad I finished it in time to enter the competition.

Here's a quick summary of how it's made:

I cut the fabric into squares that I made into 9-patch blocks.

(Trying to make random patches was harder than I expected.)

I used muslin on the corner of 13 of them since they were going to be cut off anyway.

I then used EQ7 to create a custom template for my Drunkard's path pattern that would create my letters. I needed the curves to end with 1/4 exactly that would make smooth curves for each letter.

Each template took two pages that were taped together and
cut out on freezer paper for the blocks.

I practiced a few times on muslin to be sure it would work first.

After sewing all of the 9-patches together, I tried to keep similar colors from touching. It wasn't perfect but it started to become fun.

I slowly made my way through all 13 blocks that needed to be cut and added gray to form curves to create the letters. (Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of this part since I was doing this at night after grading papers. Le sigh!)

To ensure the letters weren't touching too much, I added 2 in strips of gray in between each letter to give them a little space to show off. The shorter letters needed an extra gray block to make them as long as the "L" then I added gray on the top and bottom to make the finished piece.

This is my first quilt made entirely with Aurifil thread and I think I am hooked for life now. White and steel gray were used for all of the piecing and for quilting the many, many, many lines it took to make this dream a reality.

This beast is 68 in by 68 in and was bound using my favorite fabric from this collection called "Pegs a Plenty". (It's the only purchased yardage from this collection used to make this quilt.)

I love this quilt and am thrilled that it's finally finished.