"All Dots!" Second 2015 Block of the Month Quilt Completed

 This is a BOM quilt I started in March 2015. It is called "Mishka's Playground" and the designer is Michelle Foster. Michelle has a Facebook page devoted to this BOM and it is called Aiming for Accuracy Quilt Along. Twice a month 1-3 blocks were emailed to participants and we made our quilt in any colorway we wanted. Each month when complete we would post our blocks to the FB page.

It was extremely fun to see all the great yet different color variations in this project. Some people had a patriotic or Christmas theme; some did scrappy and some did muted primitive colors. I chose brights with a white dot and a white background. I had plenty in my stash and bought several more. The BOM ended in October-November with the three borders. The triangle pieced border was time consuming but adds so much to the quilt! I did the borders while at quilt retreat in November because I could be uninterrupted and focused. I did the border in a rainbow color wheel order because that made sense to me!! A few people on the FB group page chose to not tackle the triangle border and that's their choice. One woman added extra fabric to the quilt to fit her bed. It was already 60" x 80" and larger than I usually like to quilt but it is such a happy quilt I went ahead with it anyway! 

I machine quilted with all white thread mostly in the ditch and added accented curved lines in the white fabric areas and echo quilting in the sashings and borders.

This is a photo of the backing fabric which is spiffy too! I repeated the color wheel colors and I found a repeat of a dot or circle. I usually don't pre-shrink my fabrics but did for the backing. After working on the quilt for a week or so machine quilting it the white fabric didn't look as white as it started out to be and was dingy. When the entire quilt was done I took a chance that the dotted fabrics would not bleed in the washing machine. I set the washer on cold and added a small amount of soap and crossed my fingers it would not bleed especially the dark purples. I opened the lid of the washer while it was doing it's thing and it was fine. I put in in the dryer to give it an old fashioned "bunchy" look! I added a sleeve it to hang on my wall so I can look at it better. 

The time now is to return to making portrait quilts. I am going to do two quilt challenges up next-the 2016 Hoffman Challenge due in July and a black/white/one other color challenge due in June for the Wisconsin Quilt Expo in Madison next September. Time to design!!!

Circles

This wall hanging started at quilt retreat. I picked some on my favorite fabrics and I like to work in reds and greens. I picked up the red with lime green dots this fall and just kept adding polka dot fabrics. I have one stripe and a tone on tone green that is a Kaffe fabric. It is not intended to be a Christmas quilt but more of a study of color complements and circular shapes. When the top was pieced I started playing around with two sheer fabrics as overlays. It was fun to use nontraditional quilt fabrics because it added transparency, shimmer and color changes. My quilting friend Mary Ann Provancher lent me her tool called "Cut a Round" which made circle cutting  the sheer fabrics very easy-I may have to buy my own tool. I then pulled out of the embellishment drawer the Angelina fibers to create more yet different circles. I purchased a product called Bo-Nash  Bonding Agent at the International Quilt Festival to bond the angelina to the quilt. I didn't think it really bonded the angelina to the fabric like they claimed. I ended up using fabric glue to re-enforce it. I added felt buttons which balanced the shimmery fabrics with texture and because I can't help myself-red and green rhinestones in 4-5 sizes!! I plan to hang it on the wall at work at Pizazz Salon in Menominee, MI.