Begonia

When you work on a quilt bit by bit, month by month, all year long, there is a really big sigh when it's done. That said, my Seattle MQG mystery block-of-the-month quilt is no longer a work-in-progress. sigh....

The pattern is by Stefanie Satterwhite, and the monthly instructions are on the Seattle MQG blog. Good news, Stefanie's Begonia pattern will be out soon also, which has a few bonus features, if you'd like to make your own. It's all about half-square triangles, obviously, and Stefanie is a master with them. Be sure and check out her other designs.

For my own Begonia, I chose mostly solids, with just two Carolyn Friedlander prints. I must say, having a swatch card to reference throughout the year made all the difference in keeping things organized.

The backing was pieced from all the project leftovers, plus just a couple stash finds to bring it up to size. [Note that when we took it out for a photo-shoot yesterday, we tried an idea Zak Foster had posted a while back. Well, our haphazard version of his idea. Where Zak had made canvas pockets and basted them to the top corners of the quilt, we actually used push-pins on the front of the quilt, pushing through to a couple of pieces of wood. It definitely worked - and well - put I'm planning on pockets the next time around.]

The finished quilt is 78" square, with a 3" border all around the main design. For quilting, I did an orange peel design, which worked really well with all of the HSTs and squares... ie. very little marking.

For thread, I struggled, as I didn't [think] I had anything that would suit, and I debated endlessly over dark to match the background, or lighter, though I was worried how that would look on the background. When I happened across my old thread stash (pre-Aurifil days), I found two spools - a Madeira Aerofil #8790 [Midnight Teal Green], which just happened to be 100% polyester. I used it anyway, and it was a perfect match to the Kona Everglade background. BUT, I ran out about three-quarters through. So I switched to the second spool, a Sulky variegated 30wt, #733-4021 [Truly Teal], which was my more normal 100% cotton. So did I do the unthinkable, mixing not only colors of thread, but fiber content? Time will tell, but I'm betting it will all be ok. Both blend in so well, I really doubt anyone will notice.

So, Begonia is done and I'm pleased as can be. 

Here's a list of each month's progress, if you're interested:

January :: February :: March :: April :: May :: June

July :: August :: September :: October :: November

This project is on my #2020FALQ1List.