Unity Quilt-A-Long - Bonnie Hunter Mystery - Week 8 - REVEAL

 18th - The reveal is TODAY!!!!  Having been on retreat for 10 days has left me with a minimal amount of energy, but I pull out the fabrics for another day of cutting.  I had so hoped that neutrals would not come into play again, but . . . apparently I'm going down to the wire with them.  I have strips laying out everywhere and know that some will need to be sacrificed and cut down to make this week happen.  It's the unique nature of independent blocks --- so many flavors are required.

It happens though ---- whew.  I did have to make a couple trips to the studio and turn some fabrics so that I was using the back sides (has happened before on this quilt) in order to get the variety needed.

23rd - Yep -- almost a week has passed.  I'm trying, honest.  I've take out the fabrics I plan to use for the backing.  Is that putting the cart before the horse.  Probably, but I have more desire here right now.

24th -  A wee bit of time at the machine today nets me a few completed squares (yep, should have turned the red/white one to the back side) and a lot of square in a square units half finished.  I've tried very hard to stay organized and that means keeping track of the order I am chaining so that everyone stays together as originally planned.

26th -  Back to the task!!  I am determined today.  I have all the square in a squares complete and am working through the geese following the same process as a few days ago.  Trying to keep everything in order and yet make quick progress.  Once the geese are complete, it's off to the races webbing these units together.  Love, love, love how they look and how quick it all happened once the units were ready.  These are just dang cute.

After remaking one block by turning the neutrals to the back side (Yes, I should have done the red/white one too, but didn't), I have two borders ready to attach.

On they go!!!  Yes!!!  I am so crazy happy to reach this point and love the feel of this top.  I just says "calm" to me and during this time of uncertainty and unrest --- it seems to help.

27th - Now, back to the backing --- I really do like this one although it took me the entire day to work it all out.  Since I originally chose the fabrics to go with it (minus the pink), it makes my heart happy that it all worked out.

 More time and I have the binding and label ready to go as well.

6/1 --- Yep, it's June and I finally have this loaded to quilt.  Maybe it will happen this month.

6/11 - It only took 10 days for me to get back here again.  Wow.  In my defense, the world is a bit crazy right now and I just couldn't move forward much.  A lot of thought went into the quilting on this and I have to say that what started out as a unification during COVID has morphed into many things.  The one constant is UNITY and as a result I quilted it throughout the top.  Sometimes it appears in bunches as we are more united and then other times it is spread out as that seems to be the way our life goes right now.

With only 3 hours of my time, I have this one coming off the frame.  Could I have spent more time and added tons of detail?  Yes.  However, this quilt is a statement from the very beginning.  We are in an imperfect world and this is a very imperfect quilt.  Not a single seam was ripped out and it is what it is.  The Unity was awesome at times and horrendous at others.  What more needs to be said?

Now to bind --- hopefully at retreat this month.  I'll update this post when more progress happens.  Until then, stay creative and unified.  Life is what we put into it.  Thank you, Bonnie, for the distraction this was and the chance it gave to just be calm in a storm.   Update below!!!

6/15 I am off to retreat this week and the plan is to only take hand work with me.  That means the binding//label need to be attached to Unity and today is the day.  It turns out that I have made just barely enough binding and I had used ALL of that yellow fabric up.  Whew.

 6/18 - Making Unity my main focal point for today has given me a TA-DONE!!  I love it so much and cannot believe how much fun I had working on this one.  Thank you, once again, Bonnie!!  You are amazing.

Flat on the ground front

and back.  I gotta admit --- love, love, love this back.