Community Sampler quilt - it's finally finished!!

I am so delighted to share pictures of my finished Community Sampler quilt.  I started making blocks for this quilt in March last year, as part of the sew along hosted by Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell.  Joining in with a sew along and making blocks each week is such fun - there is so much support and encouragement from other participants and the weekly tips from Sharon and Maureen were really helpful.  You might remember from my first Community Sampler blogpost that I chose to use my Charleston and Les Petits fabrics for this quilt - both designed by Amy Sinibaldi for Art Gallery Fabrics.

I managed to fall behind when it came to the sashing week though - just too many colours to choose from!  I had originally planned to use a soft delicate Pure Solids (previously Pure Elements) colour for the background, but I just couldn't find one that I really liked against all the colours in the blocks (and my boys weren't too keen on another pink quilt in the house!).  In the end, I chose a very dark blue (Pure Solids Nocturnal) which Saira from Olive and Flo Handcraft very kindly ordered in especially for me.  I used a 50wt Aurifil thread in colour 2785 to add all the setting triangles.

Setting the blocks was a pretty easy task - it seems that all the advice along the way meant that my blocks were fairly evenly sized, a first for me!  I assembled the two vertical borders and then decided that I wanted to add borders to the top and bottom too - I was worried that the pieced border would look a bit busy if it was in contact with the half blocks directly.  This meant that I had to do some quilty maths to make the 'beads' in the borders slightly bigger to allow for the extra inches that I had added with the two borders.  

I chose the fabrics that I wanted to put in the outer border and then made use of the colouring in sheet that Sharon provided at the start to plan the fabric placement.  I wanted to  have my directional fabrics the right way up, so didn't just want to make a stack of them and then decide where to put them.  

As usual with me, once I had finished assembling my quilt top, it languished in a heap on my quilt ladder while I plucked up the courage to quilt it!  As with my Fancy Forest quilt, I bought a large flat sheet in the sale from La Redoute, which once washed a couple of times feels fairly soft and is a really economical way of backing a quilt.  I just can't justify the cost of using lovely coordinating yardage for my quilt backings with the quantity of quilts that I make!  I even had enough of the sheet left over to use it to make a toile of the Ogden Cami top to check I liked the style and fit, before cutting into my 'real' fabric!  

I settled on a straight forward straight line quilting design - following the lines of the blocks in a zigzag.  I used the navy Aurifil thread again, which was perfect match for the Nocturnal Pure Solids fabric.  I also used this thread to stitch in the ditch around the 'beads' in the border and to go around the edges of the inner borders.  I then switched to a white thread (Aurifil colour 2021) to stitch in the ditch around the key shapes in each block.  

After the usual deliberation about what fabric to choose for the binding, I chose to keep it simple and use up some of the leftover Nocturnal Pure Solids.  I was worried I would detract from the outer border if I used one of the Charleston fabrics, plus it was nice to use what I already had rather than having to order enough yardage for binding.  

I am so pleased with the finished quilt.  I have been asked several times this week, "what is this one for?" and the answer is I don't know!  But I'm pleased that these fabrics, which were a gift for my 40th birthday, are now a beautiful quilt rather than still sitting folded up in a box!

(Thank you to my 9 year old, and his slightly bemused friend who has come to play, for doing such a lovely job holding up the quilt for the photo!)