Dazzling! Alletaire done!

It feels like I have been sewing for weeks!  Oh wait, I have. . . 

When I got ready to assemble the blocks I had a slight problem.

I didn't print out the first clue because all I had to do was make HST out of 2" strips of gray and neutral.  Easy, peasey, right?

The only problem was that I had only made 140 HST and I needed 240 - gasp!  So a straightforward sewing clue turned out to be more time consuming than planned.

But, diligence pays off and here is the "Dazzling" Alletaire quilt top from Bonnie Hunter's most recent mystery QAL.

I wanted to create this solely out of my stash.  When it came time to do borders I only had one gold piece of fabric that was big enough for the whole border but I didn't love it.  So, I decided to piece two other golds in long strips for the inner border.  The colors are pretty close so it isn't very noticeable at all, especially with the striking outer border grabbing all your attention.

I also had a hard time coming up with a piece from my very small black fabric stash, that would work for the other border.  That is, until I found this piece of Giverney fabric by Bernartex that was left over from the border of my "Votes for Women" quilt that was a QAL with Barbara Brackman a few years ago.

I only had a few 8 1/2" strips and one very long 6" strip so I figured I could cut my borders 4 1/4" and have enough to surround the whole quilt top.  It turned out to be 79" X 86".  I won't be scalloping the borders like the original but a smaller size means less to hand quilt and that is fine with me.

Heads up -  I had quite a time with all the bias edges made from trimming the rectangles along the outside of the quilt.  I'm sure glad I didn't lay the top aside for a while before sewing the borders on. Just sayin'. . . . . . .

Four inches (border) was meant to be today as I woke up to this lovely fluffly four inches of snow.

Billy's quilt is on the frames.  Now that the mystery quilt is done I can focus on working with the plaids.  I should have this done in no time.

What are you working on today?
Robin