Twist - Ta Da! - a scrappy quilt made in part with scraps

Here is Twist - she is about 70" square. I named her Twist because she is a modern-traditional sort of quilt - a courthouse steps quilt that looks like lanterns, a log cabin quilt built as courthouse steps, a highly traditional pattern presented in an asymmetrical, non-repeating, modern colour scheme. Modern-traditional is a phrase that is contradictory, the unexpected ending so to speak, the twist - oh here is a highly traditional log cabin quilt - but then you look and see the twist. I'll stop now.



This quilt began  a year ago, when Daryl from Fabric Spark gave me the opportunity to curate a blogger's bundle. I picked magenta, navy and low volume white. I wanted to make something that would be bold. Twist is the result.

As I kept making blocks I realized that I wanted this quilt to be largish so I turned to my scraps and bits to finish her off. Having set out to create a non-repeating pattern it was easy to add in new fabrics as I went. It turns out that you can use your scraps in all kinds of quilts.

I blogged about the process of making this quilt a couple of times, in February here and here, then I wrote a tutorial about changing out those dark purple hearth/start squares after the blocks were made here, I put her on a list to keep working on in June here, I shared about quilting her in July here, I put her on my Q3 FAL list here, I showed the finished quilting here later in July, she went in a box for the move, she made it to the Q4 FAL list here. Finally, I found the box she was packed in and finished her off over the holidays.

There can be no suggestion that I was shy to share my process regarding the making of this quilt, progress that took place over the last 12 months, perhaps you are tired of hearing about her.



I had a great time quilting Twist. I decided to use my favourite industrial style unevenly spaced but close together lines - and then the twist - I quilted the lanterns so the lines change direction.

I also quilted the lanterns in their own colours, so I travelled along the quilt and had a lot more thread breaks than I normally do. If you carefully examine the photos you will see a couple of thread ends I missed on my mending in before I washed and dried this quilt - I'll be finishing those tonight. I have to say that the quilting makes the back of this quilt so interesting too.

I wanted to point out that I did not first quilt in the ditch around the blocks as a more traditional quilter might do and I drew the lines free hand on my longarm machine without rulers or channel locks. I thought about stitching in the ditch, but first my ditchstitching quilting is not that even and my ability and patience with rulers is worse. In the end I like this so much better anyway - another modern twist to this oh so traditional quilt pattern.



On the back I used big chunks of some favourites. The roses on the right are metallic gold - perfect I think for this quilt. I don't have a great photo for you of the binding, it is a white print with blue lines from Doe by Carolyn Friedlander -its the one at the very end of this post by Carolyn. I wanted the binding to sort  of disappear, not to hem in the pattern and it does just that.



There she is with a little scale on our wide front steps.

It turns out that Twist was also on my Q4 FAL 2015 list so I will link her up with Adrianne over at On the Windy Side here before the 2015 Q4 finish link closes - there is a day and 7 hours left so get your finishes linked up too.

And a reminder, please plan to join Nicky - Mrs. Sew and Sow - and I for the Scraptastic Tuesday link up next Tuesday, January 12 - the second Tuesday of the month. You will have a week to link your scrappy project - in progress or finished - and/or your thoughts on taming the scrap mountain. There are terrific sponsors for ST for 2016, and it's just one link per person from your blog, flickr or instagram.
And given how long this one took to finish, I am going to link this post to a few nice places where one can see beautiful and inspiring projects,  including Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday, and Blossom Heart Quilts for Sew Cute Tuesday.
Best,


Leanne