The Twenty-Year Quilt

Day 336: It's done! Well, I still have to create a "made by" tag for the back, but it's ready for the laundry. 60" x 68", it makes a nice topper for a full-size bed. They say that the skill of a quilter can be best seen on the back of their work, and while I'm not exactly proud of the machine piecing (I was working with "mistake cuts" for the print squares), I think the actual hand-quilting would pass muster. Each of the 72 blocks (pale blue center surrounded by 20 small squares) took approximately four hours. Hand-stitching is time-consuming! I feel a great sense of relief to have this one out of my "unfinished works" basket, but I've already started piecing another one.

Final Screen

Day 327 (bonus): This is it, folks! The last "screen," the last two blocks! The Twenty-Year Quilt is almost quilted! The next step will be adding a simple binding (machine sewing), and it will be DONE! DONE! DONE! For those who are curious, each of the 72 blocks consists of a four-inch center (light blue) surrounded by twenty 1" print squares. Blocks are joined squares to squares, making each "street" a double line of squares; an extra row of squares was added as a border around the entire quilt. Each small square is shadow-quilted. The plain centers are also shadow-quilted around the edge, plus a fleur-de-lys design in the middle. If you look at the back (bottom), you can see how each small square becomes a little "ravioli." Time spent in hand-quilting will be roughly 250-300 hours.