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.

Blackwork

Day 38: Blackwork embroidery is essentially nothing more than backstitch and/or running stitch and therefore is fairly simple to learn. What gives it its charm is creating filler-patterns using nothing more than those elementary stitches. The distance covered by the travelling thread (the thread on the back of the work) is the key to keeping the work flat and even. On Aida cloth, it should never be carried across more than two squares without catching it down under another stitch. Planning the line of travel for complicated patterns can be challenging. This piece is called "Lost in a Blackwork Maze" and was made following a commercially-prepared graph with a few variations of my own. I have made several versions of it over the years and finally finished one (11" x 11" on 16-count cloth) for myself!