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.

Cumulative Finish

After trimming the finished quilt to size, it was time for adding on the binding to the piece I've made for the Stretching Art & Tradition exhibit.

And then I decided to go over the couched-on spiral of cotton Baker's Twine as I'd missed too many places. That took a while! But it was worth it, now it won't get caught on anything.

There it is...Cumulative Spiral. One of my first quilt finishes for 2026, hurrah!

A close-up of the binding (I used the same Navy blue as I did for the background of Patchwork Palooza) and the now-secured spiral.  Now it's time to sew on the sleeve and label and send it off to the show organizer tomorrow!


 

Still Couching.

 

I'm still working on the "Cumulative Spiral" couching effort for my Stretching Art & Tradition quilt. It's fiddly and kind of close-up. I decided not to mark or pin or glue, but I still am working to a sort of plan/design. The thread vs. the baker's twine that I'm using is playing well together visually. But the baker's twine is sometimes getting stuck on the needle, and on the thread above the needle. So that's a little annoying, but I'm sticking with it and trying to go slow enough to notice when there's a problem developing.

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Every now and then I have to stand up and see what it is that I've couched. I'd say "So far, so good", I'm almost up to the top, which means I'm almost done. Noticing how much I truly love stitching on my hand-dyed fabrics, it's somehow still quite a thrill. That means I really do need to keep on dyeing. (note the e in the word)

SAT 26 - Begin Again

 

Working on my quilt, Cumulative Spiral for the SAT 26 exhibit (Stretching Art and Tradition). This is the un-ironed, non-sewn together background. Yes, those are all of my dyed fabrics. A lot are the results of trying to match colors for the Temperature Quilt.

More Temperature Months

 

Still working on trimming the monthly columns for the 2023 Temperature Quilt. I'm measuring each column after I trim the top and writing each number down. So far there's a pretty big variation between columns. I think I may have not correctly followed the end of the column piecing instructions for every month .

The top of each column has started out accurately, as I'm finding that I'm trimming off the same shape every time. And I know I checked and re-checked the number of days for each month. But February vs. December had different instructions on what to put on the bottom of the column. 

Again, I will note here, that I am so excited by all the colors and textures of my hand-dyed fabrics. It was definitely a good challenge for me as a dyer. And it is making me want to go dye some stuff right now this very second.

Definitely a lot of variation happening. But each column will be measured and corrected before I start sewing any sashing on to these columns.

All Twelve Months

Last day of assembling the December column for the Temperature Quilt.

Barely different blues. A few days in December the thermometer barely budged.

The Final Low Temperature piece is added. 

And there it is finally finally finally: December.

Of course, I had to get out the other months and hang them up too for a group shot.

Closer view of the column's top 1/3.

Middle 1/3

And finally the Bottom 1/3. Yes it's as uneven as the top is because I didn't take a huge amount of time lining them up as I pinned them to the design wall. Now I guess I'll have to go and watch the final assembly video that Jaybird Quilts put out with this pattern (last year!) 

I'm so happy right now!😼😼😼😼😼

December Plus Extras

 

I finished sewing together the November column of the Temperature Quilt, and put up the pieces for the final month left to assemble: December (2023). This is a picture of the state of the box of pieces sorted by temperature range. There's a lot left! I think I cut out a lot of the extras before I'd thought to count up how many I needed. The five empty Wonderclips clipped onto just the paper labels show which temperature ranges I didn't over-cut for.

On the left is the finished November column. When it came down to putting up December, I had to cut exactly one piece for the 51-55 range to finish it off. And finally there's the 68 left-over half-hexies arranged in an interesting but improbable manner.  Well, they'll at least make for an interesting pillow sham or maybe just a part of the quilt back.  

I'm feeling like the end is in sight with this project!

Return of City Sampler

 

The first project I started working on at the retreat was sewing the rest of the between-the-blocks sashing to the blocks for my City Sampler that didn't have it applied yet.

I was really glad that I'd used these straight pins that have the numbers to keep track of the rows as I went along. It's a lot of blocks!

The whole time I was working on these I kept saying to myself, "Oh wow! This one is so great! I dyed that fabric? It's beautiful!" I was really happy to jump back into this colorful project.

Finally, all of the 90 blocks out of 100 that needed a sashing piece had one attached.

And then  all 100 blocks were sewn into 10 rows of 10 blocks. The next step was applying long pieces of the same fabric to the bottom of each row. And then to sew those together and press each and every long seam towards the sashing. I didn't take pictures of this step as it was rather involved and I was getting very tired. 

But then unfortunately, I ran out of sashing fabric. As I'd cut the sashing pieces out years ago, I can't remember if I knew that or just cut a bunch and figured I'd cut more later. Anyway, now I have to find the Exact Gray Solid to continue. Wish me luck on that one. I don't have a picture of the 7 rows that got sewn together but I'll put it up on my design wall and post it later.

Colorful Cornerstones

 

An array of corner stone pieces cut out and ready to sew into the sashing for the quilt I'm making for the BAMQ group exhibit at the San Mateo County Fair. I really love the color palette represented here. I also like seeing the real difference between commercial solids and my hand-dyes.

The final arrangement before stitching.

I got most of the way there and managed to keep the points pointy. That will be more apparent after I press the seams open. Now I'm starting to think about the quilting I want to do on this....circles maybe?

All Four 4 I's Blocks

 

According to my original design, I'm moving onto working with grellow-ish, weird yellow/green and purple for the other half of my quilt. Name change of this quilt: The 4 I's (Ideation Interpretation Iteration Implementation) 

I was really really pleased with the first block that I made out of all of my hand-dyes.

Honestly, I'd like this one all on its own. 

I think it works pretty well with the other half, here it is next to the solids version of the blue and orange.

And here's how the print version of the grellow/purple looks with the other three.

Now to decide on the the final form, and add the sashing. I like the way this pattern works with four blocks right up against each other, so I may change that from the original design, and just have a larger exterior border(s) to make the final quilt 24"x36".

September Sewn

Trying to get a little more room on the design wall to work with the Bohemian Wife quilt so it's time to get the September column for the Temperature Quilt sewn together.

It goes together pretty quickly once I get back into the rhythm.

Once again, I'm very pleased to be working with all of these beautiful colors that I've hand-dyed.

By the end of the column, it goes to the black pieces, and my eyes were extra tired so I got out the around-the-neck flexible light that I have to help a bit. Black on black is extra hard, so the extra light in the right place really helped.

Tah-Dah!! There's the third quarter of 2023 done, July August, September. On to the fall and winter and getting this done.

I'm keeping the columns carefully folded up and protected in this nice large project bag that friend Jaye made for me. Pretty sure that there's enough room for the next three columns.