"Checkered" - Upcycled blues #42 finished

Here it is - all finished.

This type of quilting, while tedious, is not hard on a domestic machine. My Janome has a large enough throat that it all gets stuffed in there and I can do it reasonably easily. I don’t know, but I think it is easier on a domestic than on a long arm. I do use a walking foot. It doesn’t work so well without one - there is too much pulling without the walking foot.

These little blue squares are 1” finished. I was using up all the odds and ends of my blues - or at least trying to - that’s why you do see speckles of other colors in there. The blues I used sometimes had other colors involved with them so that these tiny little squares often looked like they weren’t even blue. It is because they weren’t. The overall piece from which that tiny square came WAS a blue shirt or something, but that section of the print wasn’t.

Anyway…I left all those speckles of other colors in it. I like it!

It’s probably one of the heaviest quilts I’ve made in a long time. There are a lot of seams in it - so when I picked up the top to get ready to sandwich it, I groaned…wow…it was heavy.

The finished quilt weighs 3.30 kg or 7.27 lbs. That’s with poly batting!

I showed how I made the top here! At this point, it doesn’t seem like I need to make a pattern for this as it is only one block - yes ONE block - a 16 patch that looks like this:

I just made a bunch of them. The link above shows the process of putting it together -

I thought also you might like to see the difference between a flat top and the extra texture that is created with quilting. It is also after washing as I always wash my quilts before I consider them really finished. (You are welcome to do as you wish - but I do use adhesive spray glue on it and I like to think I’m getting it out in that final wash - plus I like the little crinkles that happen when it gets washed.)

I actually debated NOT doing this quilting even though in my heart I knew I should do this. First of all, it is easy and a great way for me to ease myself back into quilting mode for the fall. I’ve done very little quilting this summer - only the beige wedding quilt, really. But also because I knew it was perfect for it - the design. I knew it would mean dense quilting and take quite a while. It did take about 6-7 hours to do this quilting. I split it up over a couple of days.

Because this is part of my upcycled blues series - I am trying to show you the backs as well. I am pretty much down to the dregs of my bigger blues and may be expanding into other colors for the coming ones. I do have a few more pieces of blue but they are not for backing.

I have updated the picture on the upcycled blues page here. Once again - there is no pattern as it is simply a checkered 16 patch - on point. I do show it in the link above quite extensively if you want to make one. i am debating doing one with fall colors - maybe all browns or scraps from my boxes of upcycleds. Would work as a simple leader/ender project (That is something you put through your machine before you sew your other pieced blocks so your machine doesn’t pull the fabrics down into the throat plate - that is, if you do those.).

Anyway…

That’s all for now!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!

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