Colors Caught

 So I washed the Solstice Quilt before I gifted it to my niece. And I knew there was a chance that the dark purple batik fabrics would run, because they had during the block construction.

Many many Color Catchers were thrown in the washer.

And it worked, thank goodness, no running at all!

Solstice Completed

Here is how the Solstice Quilt turned out!

My niece was very pleased with it, which made me very happy. 

It just barely fits in my design wall at 95" square. 

Here's a close-up so you can see the lovely work the long-arm quilter I used did for me. It was an overall swirly pattern, and it looks great. Highly recommend Minaret Designs in Felton.

 I'm so glad that I did this project, I learned a lot about accurate piecing thanks to Pat Sloan's great directions.

Making the Back and Covering My Table

 While making up the backing for the Solstice Quilt, I found I needed some more yardage that would match the other blocks of piecing I'd completed. It ended up king-sized, so I had to keep adding on.  I found some batiks that would fit in with the other colors I'd already used.

And then there was this beautiful plaid. I don't always like plaid, but sometimes they have the right colors or the right size differences in stripes. This one had a gorgeous hand and once I touched it, I knew it needed to be a tablecloth. So now it is.

Back of Solstice Quilt

 Now that I'm posting the back of the Solstice Quilt, I'm realizing I never showed you the front. Well that will be another post I suppose.  So here's the back of the king-sized quilt. It's comprised of all the scraps from making the blocks as well as some larger pieces of batiks.

 I assembled it in sections and framed the "blocks" of scraps and floated the strips on a background. Sorry about the yellowy pictures, I guess they didn't get color corrected.

 There that shows the color better. I had all these little pieces and sorted them into similar sizes and sewed them together into longish columns. I like how it looks floating against the green.

There were some little teeny pieces left from one of the blocks, so I sewed them together into something that looks pretty interesting. In some senses I like the back better than the front.

Solstice 24

 The twenty-fourth block in the Solstice quilt is a nice square centered star. I did a little more thoughtful placement of some of the batik patterns this time. Not exactly fussy-cutting or anything, but I like how it turned out.

Solstice 23

Solstice block #23, this one I didn't succeed at translating well with my batik collection. It was hard to get enough contrast for the pattern, so it just looks like a 16 square block. But I felt like I needed some brown in the quilt top and this fit in well. A good example of scale and type of prints being as important as tone and value in terms of how a block design works or doesn't.

Solstice 22

 The 22nd Solstice Quilt block, Weather Vane was a big one, 24.5" square so it had a lot of impact. I decided to cool things down a little with an all green, soothing block. And it was a stretch to find enough of non-bright greens to use in my batik stash. I have tons of lime green (of course) but not nearly as much of the more muted greens.

I like how it turned out, but I'd probably make some different choices on the fabrics to make the different bits stand out a little more.

Solstice 21

Here's the 21st Solstice Quilt block, Tile Time,  I like how this block ended up looking, It was meant to balance out the other black/white block in the quilt top.

I'm going to finish up posting all the Solstice Quilt blocks so I can show you the whole top assembled.

Solstice 20

Block 20 for the Solstice Quilt is pretty cute, X's and O's, mwah! I needed some warm-ish colors for the area of the quilt this block is going.

I couldn't help but sew up the left overs from all those half square triangles. I predict they'll end up on the back of this quilt somehow.

Solstice 19

This big block for one of the corners of the Solstice Quilt is called 'Board Games', it's 24x24". Doesn't it look like a Parcheesi board? I really liked how graphic this one is with those stripes, has a lot of punch. I was originally planning to mix all the colors of the stars and backgrounds up, but decided I liked them being more uniform. It seemed to be more board-game-like that way.

Solstice 18

The end of making the blocks for the Solstice Quilt is in sight. This one is called "On The Go" which makes sense as it has a sort of arrowhead feel to it. I like how the batik prints recombined in this.

Here's how all the completed blocks look together, I think it's going to work. A lot will depend on how I do the setting framing and so on...

Solstice 17

Yes, I'm still working on the Solstice Quilt even though the solstice has come and gone. Eclipse quilt maybe? Nope, that's today, so maybe the winter solstice... Anyways, here's Block 17, it's called Spring Fever. Even though it's late summer, I still like how this one turned out. Possibly because of the background fabric which I've been itching to use in this quilt.

Solstice Sixteen

This sixteenth Solstice Quilt block is rather simple but I think really nice because it is very graphic and quite powerful. With different prints and placement you could make some interesting secondary designs within the block.

Solstice Fifteen

The fifteenth block for the Solstice Quilt, I didn't get them all done by the solstice, sigh, but I'm still working on them.

Solstice Fourteen

For an appliqué block, I quite like this one. I like the subtlety of the prints I used on the nine-patch in the center.

Solstice Thirteen

 The thirteenth Solstice Quilt block, eh not my favorite. Those little triangles in the corner aren't working for me.

I am liking how all the blocks look together so far.

Solstice Twelve

This twelfth block for the Solstice Quilt might be my favorite so far. Maybe it's just the colors that I used.

Solstice Eleven

Sounds like a movie title to me. This is a really nice block, lots of possibilities to play with as far as the colors.

It's almost looking like the start of something at this point.

Solstice Ten

 Here's the tenth block I've gotten done for the Solstice Quilt. Pretty simple, but it's got some depth.

 I really like how this one looks with all the others so far.

Solstice Nine

  The ninth weekly Solstice block was a really big one, 32" square. It was a whole lot of HST's (Half Square Triangles) but at least they weren't teeny tiny for one of those 6.5" blocks for the City Sampler.

Here's how all the squares looked when I cut them out. I had to count the darks, mediums and lights several times to make sure I'd cut out enough.

Once all the piecing was done, choosing how to lay out the block was the fun part. I tried several arrangements out, and tiled them together. This gives a good idea of how this one block could make a pretty great quilt top all on its own.

I sewed it together in sections, taking the layout in chunks from the design wall over to the sewing machine to keep the pattern straight.

Eventually it all went together very well. I'm pleased with how the whole thing looks when all the blocks are together.