Tag: Belfast Maine

February 21, 2015

“Grand Illusion” Finished

Here she is:  Bonnie Hunter’s 2014 Mystery Quilt, “Grand Illusion,” inspired by the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan.

You may recall that Bonnie gives out her colors in early November some time.  We all scramble around picking fabrics and getting ready to go.  Then she releases the first “clue”–which is the making of the quilt’s first set of units–on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  (Why on earth do they call that Friday “Black Friday”?)  After that, we are off and running at the pace that each of us can manage.  Some times we fall behind, some times we take months to finish the quilt, some times we finish it about a week after Bonnie releases her version–the “reveal”–sometime between Christmas and New Year’s.

I finished mine this week.  And I will say up front that I need better pictures of the whole quilt than I have.  I’ll get some at our next quilt meeting (we’ve had to cancel both the January and February meetings due to the Maine weather) when friends will hold her up for me.

See the secondary pattern that forms around the turquoise square?  See the big blue star?  And the diamond that outlines it with the darker pinks?

Here’s the main block in my quilt–surrounded by the green/white/black sashings

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Here’s the very cool border.  ( I love how the yellow is working in this quilt.)

 

Here’s the backing fabric–which I think is an INSPIRED choice for this very contemporary quilt.  I found the fabric at Fiddlehead in Belfast, Maine.

Bluebirds, bicycles, and daisy’s–both in the bicycle basket and, larger, in the background.  The fabric also has a very French feel to it…

I quilted with a warm yellow, using a Daisy pantograph from Anne Bright called “He Loves Me” at 10 inches.

Here’s a view from the front of one daisy:

And one from the back that as chance would have it, kind of overlays one of the white daisies:

It’s an awfully cute quilt–especially for a teen age girl.

 

(Wild-haired dolly will soon be going to her owner, who will be 2 in April and probably reeling from the shock of a new baby.)