Happy Flower quilt - my finished top

It's finished!! 

Well, the quilt top is assembled at least!  The hand quilting might take me another year...

I started making the blocks for my Happy Flower quilt back in March 2017 keeping up with the sew along hosted by Kristyne Czepuryk of Pretty by Hand.  The original 'Pink Book' was called Happy Flower Quilts by Atsuko Matsuyama and was translated into English at the end of 2016.  The UK version of the book is called Sew Flower Quilts & Gifts - it has a different cover (which I have to say I'm a bit disappointed about as I really liked this quilt being the cover photo on the original book) but the inside is exactly the same.  I nearly ended up with two copies a couple of Christmases ago - I thought my hints to my husband had fallen on deaf ears, so ordered myself a copy from Sarah at Pretty Fabrics & Trims.  My husband (who had already bought me the book when I first mentioned it) was mildly irritated to find that I had scuppered what was supposed to be a surprise present (Sarah very kindly filled him in on what I'd been up to and swapped my book order with fabric - wonderful customer service as always!).  

I decided to stick to Lecien fabrics as much as possible for all my blocks to mimic the style of the original quilt.  I started with a bundle of Retro 30s Child Smile fabrics and then I pulled out all the Lecien fabric from my Flirty 30s stash to add to my pile.  I added a few along the way too, including some from the Old New 30s 2017 range.  Although I love the original pink quilt, I live in a house of boys, so decided to mix up the sashing colours to tone the pink down to a 'more acceptable level'!  I used a selection of pale pastel Kona solids mixed with some Bella solids by Moda.  All of my fabrics were from Pretty Fabrics & Trims and The Homemakery.  

Working at a rate of 2 blocks a week was fun and generally manageable.  It was my first time working with paper templates and I found the cutting of all the tiny little triangles quite time consuming.  My first attempt at Y-seams was an eye opener - how tricky are they?!  Block 9 took me a whole day and a lot of ironing to get it to look remotely like a square block!  

I tended to prepare several of the appliqué blocks at a time and then carried them around with me in a tin so that I could work on them while watching tennis lessons, on the school run and on holiday.  I even sewed a couple of blocks in a beach hut.  One tip for the appliqué blocks - cut a 5 1/2" background square to work with and then trim down to 5" once you have finished the appliqué and given it a good press (then it doesn't matter if your fabric has become a bit distorted after all your stitching).  I can't recommend Aurifil 80wt  thread highly enough for needle turn appliqué - my stitches just disappeared and yet is was strong too. 

By August, I had a pretty little of pile of blocks so I used them as my Leaders and Enders project while I worked on other things, and had them assembled into rows in no time.  

I found choosing a border fabric tricky, but decided on a lovely pale blue gingham from the Bunnies and Cream range.  It is a similar blue to that used for some of the sashing and kept the light and airy feel that I was hoping for. 

My long suffering husband was thrilled, as you can imagine, when I asked him to be my quilt holder in the snow a couple of weeks ago!  A different man might have assumed I was joking, but he knows me too well and donned his wellies, scarf, hat and coat and trudged out to balance on the edge of the boys' sandpit so that he could show the full length of the quilt.  I daren't think what the neighbours thought - then again, they're probably used to my crazy photo shoot antics by now! 

Now I just have the mammoth task of hand quilting it all...  I'm still thinking about how I'm going to do that and what thread to use.  I usually use Aurifil 12wt for my hand quilting, but I think that I might want to go for a thinner thread that is less obvious - there is probably enough going on in this quilt as it is!  I need to investigate Aurifil 28wt thread as a possibility.  If you have used Aurifil 28wt thread before for hand quilting, I'd be really interested to know your thoughts.  

If you would like to make this beautiful Happy Flower quilt, pop over to Kristyne's website to see all of her beautiful blocks.  There is also a Facebook  page dedicated to this quilt sew along hosted by Zakka Workshop, who published the book.   Wynn Tan has also been sewing along - producing beautiful blocks all sewn by hand - so check out her blocks on Instagram @zakkaart.