The final unveiling..................

Here we go! This is Jan's Beautiful Quilt! So there are no questions about it, here is Jan's description of the quilt in her own words!

"The quilt is from a Block of the Month from Fabric Boutique in Las Vegas. Blocks made in some nice year….2008 or 2009 I think. They sat around quite a while anyhow. It was originally supposed to be white, browns and black. I thought it was way too stark, so I used the butterscotch for the background instead. I put the paisley in
the border because I was trying for a tooled leather look. Not sure if I made it, but I tried!

Setting is an adaptation of one of the quilts in Brenda Henning's School House Sampler. Center medallion is from one of Jane Wilson's patterns from the early 2000's, or maybe the late 1990's.

These aren't colors from my usual palate, however I really like how they worked together. I was shooting for a Western/Manly type quilt. I think I made the grade, what say you?"

Okay, quick stats and then I will talk about the quilt.
Two layers batting - Hobbs 80/20 & 100% cotton Hobbs
4 thread colors - mostly Highlights and Gold Metallic by Superior Threads.
This quilt took me over 90 hours to quilt, I started on January 2nd and finished tonight at 5:15 pm on the nose! I used 30 bobbins of thread, So Fine was my thread of choice for that!

When I first pulled out this quilt, I have to admit - I was stumped for about 10 minutes - then a thought and image of a directional compass popped into my head. I knew this would be the center of the quilt and kind of the theme for the quilt. This was the first time that I had to draw on the quilt before I put it on the racks because the center block is so large. I drew out the compass outline - can you believe that I drew it out in one try? Well, I did - and I won't take credit for that - just amazing luck!

Not one block is the same - I had fun taking each block and giving them their own character.

I had a hard time choosing which pictures to put on my blog, so I have more on Flickr if you care to look - just click on the pictures and it will take you to my Flickr page.

I wanted these blocks to look like they were spinning.

Love, love how this one turned out!

Another spinning block!

As you can see the sashing is a miniature mimic of the gold colored border. These little beauties took FOREVER - and boy was I so happy when I quilted the last one.

(this happens to be my favorite block)

I quilted most of the cream fabric first - stitching in the ditch around the rest of the colored triangles - then I went back and did the rest of the quilt.

There was a TON of ruler work on this quilt. My hands cramped up a little at the end - especially with the borders.

Miniature directional compass blocks - I just may have a tutorial or a PDF coming up soon for these nice blocks.

All in all - it was a labor of love. I absolutely love how this quilt turned out. I am also grateful to Jan for allowing me "do my thing" and turn this quilt into a masterpiece.

And, I can't show pictures without showing pictures of the back!