Challenge Quilt Done

I have never used more than one or two colours of thread to quilt one of my projects before this week.  Last year, the Oxford Quilt Guild issues a challenge to make a quilt using blocks with 15 2.5" squares and 5 flying geese.  I proceeded to make 16 blocks, each a different colour, without repeating any of the fabrics in the blocks. Each block contains 25 unique fabrics.  The blocks have been sitting in a bin in my sewing room for a couple of months while I thought about how I might set them to make my quilt. I put them out on the floor this week and tried various fabrics that I had in my stash for sashing.  First, I tried a few different prints but they fought with the blocks so I ended up using black. I cut the sashing 1.5" wide.  The black block blended too much with the black sashing so I decided to sash it in orange instead, to match the little lady bug in one of the black fabrics. 

I pin basted the quilt earlier this week and then hung it over the railing to look at it and decide on how to quilt it.  I am a walking foot quilter and wanted to emphasize the motion created by the flying geese in my blocks.  The geese in the middle of the quilt fly clockwise and the geese on the outside fly counter clockwise. 

I wanted to just use one colour of thread for the entire quilt but could not find one colour in my thread stash that looked good with every block. The quilt kept telling me to use matching thread for each block and I finally listened and plunged in. 

I only had one colour of pink thread in my stash, so the pink and magenta blocks are both quilted with the same colour.  In total, I used 15 colours of thread, which are shown in the first picture of this post. 

I used black binding, despite the fact that I hate sewing black fabric with black thread--so hard to see, even with good lighting!  

The backing is some black and white gingham, printed on the diagonal with an orange stripe inserted to make it wide enough.

This challenge was to be done for our meeting later this week.  It will be interesting to see all of the different versions that people have made. 

I finished off my December Modern BOM block this week as well. 

I have finished 5/12 blocks.  The February block pattern will be released in mid-February. 

More stitches were added to Love Birds again this week--I finished the leaves in this section and have the cream coloured flower about 3/4 done.  

My daughter received the Ecru thread I sent to her in the mail and there was enough to finish her embroidery picture. It's so pretty!

The bicycle embroidery is just about done now.  I am in love with the stitches on the basket!

It's been very cold where Finn and my daughter live this past week so Finn had to wear his coat and boots when he went out for a walk.  He has an LED collar to make him visible at night.  Finn is not very excited to put on his boots but the salt on the sidewalk hurts his paws so he must wear them. 

We had a little bit of snow here this past week--light and fluffy. 

I will link up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge today and Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching group tomorrow.