Off The Wall: Sewvivor - Off The Wall

There is a blog that I recently discovered called Family Ever After that is having a contest called Sewvivor. I also discovered this is the 3rd year of the contest. For several days I debated whether this was something I was brave enough to do. Well, I have decided to go for it and as an audition quilt, I am using my recently finished Giant Churn Dash Quilt from Elvy Crafts. The blocks are 24 inches finished and boy did this quilt go together fast! I had been wanting to make a churn dash quilt for a while and I am so glad I picked this one. It really gives the fabric lots of space to show off!

At first I thought I would make the background white but then worried with so much open space it might start to look dingy after awhile. I decided a navy would be a nice backdrop to the teals and grays. Because I seem to have a little trouble with staying focused I accidentally made an extra teal block that found it's way to the back of the quilt.

I really love how that turned out!!

Here is a close up of the block on the back.

Isn't she just so pretty!!!

This is me being modest! hehe

As you can see there is a lot of open spaces in this quilt which made me think long and hard about how to quilt it. I pretty much use straight or wavy lines when I quilt. On small things I have branched out and done a little FMQ. But since this was a gift for my recently married daughter and husband I really wanted it to look nice.

So... I hand quilted it with #5 DMC Perle cotton. I used two different colors of variegated thread. I really love how this looks!!!! I spent the month of June quilting and it was so relaxing sitting in my comfy chair looking out into my backyard garden. I think I may have fallen in love with hand quilting. Since the thread was so chunky, I made big stitches. I will definitely be using this technique again. Especially since I have a few new calluses built up on my fingers!!!

Just a couple more pictures because I just really love this quilt!!!!