City Sampler Final Photo

Tah-dah, here it is, my now-completed City Sampler. It was much too big for my design wall and my work room as you can see. Get ready for a whole lot of pictures so you can see some of the details.

I made the 100 blocks in Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks book way back in 2016 out of Tula Pink fabrics and my own hand-dyed cotton fabrics. 

I designed the outer border and am quite pleased with how it turned out.

It took a lot of figuring, and sketching, but it was worth it to make the quilt big enough for our bed.

The rest is all gray(s) but of course not just one because of...reasons. 

Turns out keeping track of solids is Very Hard because there's no printed selvedge. 

We live--we learn, right? 

And here's what the back looks like. I love love love that snake.

The blocks sat around finished for quite a while, and then I went to a CQFA retreat in January 2020  (four years!) where I sewed the grey sashing to one side of a lot of the blocks but not all of them. 

Then they sat around a little longer (four years!) before I went to a BAMQ retreat in 2024 and I sewed the rest of the sashing onto the blocks, and then sewed most of the blocks into rows. 

The rest of the assembly and then the making of the backing took a while too. The backing got started in  July 2025. 

Then later that month, I finished the backing, the binding and eventually I turned it over for the fabulous quilting is by the wonderful long-armer Colleen Granger. 

Then this week, I finally sewed down the binding and today was the pinning up and photographing. What a long, drawn-out process this was! In the end, this might be the quilt I'm most pleased with that I've ever made. Don't tell my DH, but it's going to be the anniversary gift this year. And as I said yesterday, a project to take off of my 2026 UFO Finishes Challenge list.