Deborah's Blue Quilt : "Blue Delft"

My dear friend Deborah wanted a blue and white quilt, right about the same time Leah Day was offering her Building Blocks Quilt Along.  Perfect!  I already had quite a few of the fabrics, and got some more from the thrift store, and a very few more from the fabric store.  I downloaded the pattern and started. 

I worked along with Leah's class to piece and free motion quilt each block with my Janome Horizon 7700.  Actually, near the end I had to work ahead of the class to get it done by my deadline. 

  I assembled it with the Quilt As You Go (QAYG) method, which I first learned from Marguerita McManus, and her wonderful book, Crazy Shortcut Quilts. After connecting all the blocks I then embellished the sashing seams with the decorative stitches on my machine.  

Leah also explains this method in her BBQA class.

I finished it just in time to present it to Deborah for her birthday on July 21.  Oh Joy!

Here is my design wall during the process.

This is what the sashing looks like on the back after the seam embellishment.  

 

Here is the finished quilt on our guest room double bed.  It is actually 90" x 90" for Deborah's queen size bed. 

 

I was able to use up tons of small print fabrics I had been collecting for the backing of each block!  Since this was QAYG I only needed an 18" square for each backing. 

This is how I make all my labels.  I create them on my computer with a template that I keep modifying and saving, and I print onto computer fabric sheets.  I then use some scraps from the front of the quilt to frame it, then I hand stitch it on.