Wednesday, January 7, 2015

It's so Grand!

Linking up with Bonnie to show my progress and to give her a great big "Thank You!" for sharing her wonderful quilt design talents with all of us.  A special welcome to everyone who is visiting Quilt Awhile through her link.  It's so nice to have you stop by!

The only way I've been able to keep up with Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt is that I'm making a half-size version.  My thanks to Beth and Karen for their comments and helping me decide to go with the original pattern.  They saved me a lot of ripping out for the changes I was considering.  I forged ahead and tonight the borders went on!  Here's what it looks like so far:
Half Grand Illusion  60" x 75"
Not a great photo I'm afraid, but it will have to do.   Some of my greens are so dark that they 'read' nearly black.  I think that has made it harder for me to see the true pattern in this quilt.

Another problem I had is a quilter's natural tendency to never put two pieces the same color together.  I found this out when I was piecing the border, and did I ever do a lot of ripping!  Evidently my brain just didn't want those yellows to go together, and I repeatedly would flip one section the wrong way.  Did you have any sections that looked like this?
Border oops!
Finally, I don't know if it was because I was making a half version, or if my seam allowances were so far off, but at any rate the borders were too long.  What to do????  I was starting to envy the quilters of a century ago who would just lop off a border or a block if it didn't fit right.

Hmmm,  what was stopping me?  So I took a deep breath and sliced a generous 1/2 inch off each end.  Crazy?  Maybe.  It made for an interesting look at the corners, but it works for me!
Funky corners, but I think I like them!

I'm considering adding another plain border to finish it off.  Maybe 5 inches of a nice green print.  I'll have to see what I can find in my stash.  I know I have greens leftover from Celtic Solstice!

Edited 1/31/2015
I had just enough red to put a 2.5 inch red border around the whole quilt and call it done!  I was a little surprised to see the scalloped border look it gave the quilt. (Sorry about the colors, the flash wouldn't go off and it's a cloudy day...but you get the idea.)




4 comments:

  1. I think your lopped-off borders work great because of the way the whites come together and look like an intentional square "behind" the black fabric. I have been wondering what to do with my borders, even thinking about leaving off the pieced border entirely, but I like your solution! No one except our fellow mystery quilters will ever know that it was not part of the original design.

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  2. I love it--turned out great--including the borders!

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  3. Looks good! I like your border corners. I didn't think of doing something like that - mine is 3x3, so I had to alter the border, too. But I like yours better than my solution.

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  4. Looks great. I love the scallops also. What a nice surprise.

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