Orca Bay Wrap-up!

Bonnie Hunter is doing a final linkup on her blog, http://www.quiltville.blogspot.com/, so we can all share our Mystery Quilts.  This has been a good incentive for me to actually finish a quilt on a timely basis.  I started on November 18th and finished the top January 19th, pretty amazing for a quilt with over 4500 individual pieces!

I love the secondary directional lines created by the "birds" - half-square triangles with wings!  The black/blue lines create a unique sashing effect around the red squares.

This block wasn't planned, but I love it and it shows up in the top corner, so it catches my eye everytime I look at my quilt top.

But this little Heather Ross fishee is my favourite (my mom used to use a fish to mark her ceramics, and I hunted this Heather Ross fabric down to make labels for my quilts) - I just had to add him to the top as well!

I learned so much doing this quilt.  The best thing I learned was webbing the top.  I'm not sure if I got it exactly right as per Bonnie's instructions, but I worked out steps that worked for me.  I'm working out a tutorial on how I did it. 

I used tools I've owned and never used before.

When I was webbing my top, I used my Fons & Porter pins to label which way the blocks should be directed - these ones are marked on the "Up" side.  I put a pin on the top of each column and used a sharpie to put the column number on the back.

Then I labelled the first block in each row. In this case, "R" stood for Row, not right. Again, I numbered the back of the pins.

 I learned how to use my companion angle ruler that I have owned for about 7 years, and never used.  I used it for both quarter-square triangles and to trim down my red string blocks.  I also learned how to make string blocks! I perfected my chain piecing technique, learned that ironing those pieces were a lot easier if you did it before cutting them apart. I learned that anything can be accomplished if you break it down into smaller pieces - now I'm viewing all my UFOs with a different eye! 

Thank you, Bonnie, for a great mystery! I will be joining you for your next adventure!