Cheery
September 2021
Here is my finished Hometown BOM (block of the month) that was hosted earlier this year by Jacquelynne Steves over at Art of the Home. She typically hosts a couple of sew alongs each year, and this is the fifth I’ve participated in, which included Save the Bees, Silver Linings (I made two), FaLaLa and her current Snowman & Silent Night sew along.
The colorway inspiration for me came from the border fabric, which has been in my stash for a while, waiting for just the right project, and this was it! The sew along was offered in two colorways – Spring and Summer. I loosely followed the Summer colorway, using the colors from the outer border for selecting the other fabrics for the blocks and setting triangles. I quilted it on my regular sewing machine, doing meandering stitching in the border and setting triangles, and 1/4″ away from the ditch stitching on the blocks. The quilt finished at approximately 66″x66″. Here is how I finished the back…
Love Hugs 
That is cheerful, pretty colors. I like the back. I have been wanting to try my regular sewing machine to quilt the layers together, might go ahead and make a sample one as a tester.
Thanks! The back was rather tricky, trying to get the on point blocks just the right size to touch top to bottom (they’re not perfect, but they’re close). In the past couple of years, I have experimented more and more with quilting on my regular machine. I started with smaller projects – I quilted the center of Hoplon, and then did a bunch of table runners and baby quilts to really get the feel for how much I could squeeze through the machine’s throat, how much I could maneuver moving a quilt (i.e. for meandering), and learned a lot about reducing drag not only at the throat, but off the front of the machine as well (mine’s in a cabinet). I’ve worked my way up to section quilting (see Fancy Fox, Onshore Breeze, Rising Star and Further). This one, was the first that I quilted at its full size, and while the straight stitching wasn’t too bad, the meandering was a challenge. I encourage you to give it a try! It’s so nice to be able to make a quilt from piecing all the way through quilting. Good luck and most importantly, have fun in your quilting journey 🙂