Sunflower quilt

Here it is: My Sunflower quilt. I don't know why I had such trouble getting photos of this one, although it is a bit larger than the ones I normally make. But this morning I took it outside and put it on the clothesline. As luck would have it, it is a windy day, so there would inevitably be some movement in the pictures, but I set my camera to the "Sports"-setting and snapped away. I have tweaked it a bit in Photoshop to make it look straighter - that old saggy clothesline needs replacing... - and to get rid of some of the grayness in the photo. (I haven't mastered Photoshop yet - there's another project. I might have to get one of those "...for Dummies" books or something, but that's for another day. Back to the quilt.) Those who have been passing by during the last year, might remember that it came from this book. The size is 90 x 64" and the Sunflower fabric is from Valori Wells' Sole collection. I started it with the hope of finishing it during my summer holidays last year, but I was stumped when it came to choosing fabric for the border, and I lost some of my momentum. Then some other projects got in the way, as they tend to do here, and the top languished for ever. When I eventually got around to quilting it I was enamoured by quilts with lots of texture to them, i.e. heavily quilted ones, so I started out with lots of stippling on the sunflower-blocks. Then of course, I needed a lot of quilting on the courthouse step blocks too, and chose to do those in wavy lines.

I must admit that I have regretted this more than once, because that was a lot of quilting! But I took it one block at a time (the block size is 18"!) and eventually it was done. I've been struggling with a cold this past week, and spending hours on the sofa watching movies and stitching what felt like miles of binding while keeping warm underneath the quilt was just the thing. It is surprisingly soft, by the way, in spite of all the quilting, so this will be my favourite nap quilt for a while. I have so many of them that I really ought to start taking more naps ;-)