Squeaking In To The Fall Bloggers Quilt Festival

It's that time again -- time to sit back with a good cup of tea and admire all of the entries for Amy's Fall Bloggers Quilt Festival. She puts an amazing amount of work into organizing and hosting this festival and I love seeing all the creativity in one place.

My entry this time around is Country Charmer which I finished up last December, just in time for Christmas, which is fitting, because it was a Christmas photo of it on Lynn's Sew'n Wild Oaks blog that got me hooked. Lynn designed the pattern and, after much ogling, I decided that I just had to make it. I've entered it into the Large Quilt category.

This one is right in my wheelhouse - lots of little pieces (53 per block), a great opportunity to create blocks with scrappy fabric combinations, and all those tiny nine-patch blocks for the sashing. LUV!

I got the crazy idea last August that if I put my mind to it I might be able to have it ready to be quilted and on the bed by December. If you follow my blog at all you will know that my quilts have very loooooong lives, so that was pretty wishful thinking.

However, nothing focuses the mind like a deadline and so I set to cutting and sewing like a crazy lady, and I managed to do just that.

Mine is larger than the original pattern because I wanted to use it on our queen bed so it ended up around 82" x 92".

It's backed with a great red and green paisley...

and bound with a small red gingham on the bias - another favourite.

Roberta at Cocoa and Quilts did a beautiful job machine quilting it with a pattern called Swirl that is just the perfect combination of swirls and feathers.

It was to be a Christmas quilt but, truth be known, we love it so much that it has stayed on our bed all year round. Maybe I should switch it up with another quilt for a month or two so that I can put it on again in December!

This one was like a good book that you want to read again and again, and one that I am tempted to make again and again....M