Calendar Cascade Complete

When I dropped my Calendar Cascade quilt top off with Dionne @dinglebobbins for long-arming, I didn't really expect to be back so quick with a quilt finish to share! In less than two weeks, she'd used a lovely Fil-Tec Glide polyester thread in Clover 60577 to quilt a Modern Twist X3 design, and my quilt was ready to pick up!

Just as a reminder, Calendar Cascade was designed for our 2025 Seattle MQG Block of the Month (AKA BOM) by guild-member Naomi te Wildt @quiltingnaomi. My original fabric pull consisted of Kona cottons in Emerald, Fern, Honey Dew, Jade Green, Julep, Lagoon, Pacific, and Pistachio. In case you've missed my posts on this quilt, note to count how many shapes are in a specific row and that will tell you what month it's for - one for January, two for February, etc. Thus the design's name, Calendar Cascade.

At 70" x 92", this finish feels really big to me, and I'm so grateful Dionne was able to help me get it finished. Bound in Kona Emerald, I love seeing how the quilting undulates across the front and that pieced quilt back.

Unfortunately, there was no way I was going to be able to hold up this big quilt and get my picture with it. So this 'armful' shot will have to do for now....  At least it's a picture of me and the finished quilt.

Calendar Cascade :: Next Steps

Back last January when the Calendar Cascade BOM began and I heard the final dimension of the quilt - 70" x 92" - I knew I'd probably ask someone to quilt it for me. At this stage, anything close to 90" is more than I want to deal with. So once my quilt top was done, I contacted my friend Dionne Hersh @dinglebobbins, and happily, she was willing to do the quilting for me, so we made an appointment to meet up.

Meanwhile, I needed to make a quilt back! For long-arming purposes, it needed to be 78" x 102", and after getting Dionne's OK, I dove into making a pieced quilt back. I began by piecing leftover quilt blocks and scraps and putting them up on the design wall.

And that process just continued, making it up as I went.

When the smaller scraps started running low, I began adding in larger solid pieces and swaths of fabric from my original fabric pull.

At some point I did need to grab a couple of larger coordinating pieces from stash, though I did cut and set aside binding strips from the original pull before using what I did on the back. It was close, but I made it! The back was too big to get a decent picture, but you get the gist from the photo below.

So I was able to drop the quilt top and back off with Dionne last week, and we spent a time deciding on a quilting design, batting, and thread. After auditioning quite a few, the design we both agreed would be a good choice was Modern Twist X3, stretched horizontally a bit. It was great that with Dionne's quilting software, we could lay the design over the quilt top and adjust the scale. With that capability, we were able to choose a density we both liked.

I decided to go with Hobbs 80/20 cotton/poly blend batting, and for thread, Fil-Tec Glide polyester in Clover 60577.

So yes, I'm pretty excited that the big step of quilting Calendar Cascade is now in Dionne's capable hands. One day soon I'll be back with a finished quilt to share!

Calendar Cascade Top!

It always feels GREAT to have a year-long project finished. Well, not finished per se, but at least I have a quilt top!

Designed by Seattle MQG guild member Naomi te Wildt @quiltingnaomi, the Calendar Cascade top is 70" x 92". I think it's a very clever design, with each row signifying a month of the year. I did add an extra insert in the row for November. My half-circles didn't quite meet cleanly, so that insert makes it a little less obvious. By then, I didn't have many of my original fabrics left that were large enough, so I chose the one I thought was best. Not ideal, but I'm ok with it.

Honestly, 92" is larger than I really feel like quilting these days, so happily, I've made arrangements to have this one long-armed. SO I need to get going on a quilt back and hopefully I can hand it off before long.

Return to Calendar Cascade

Whew. I finally got caught up with the Seattle MQG BOM, Calendar Cascade, and made my rows for August, September, and October. If you remember from my earlier post about this project, each month's assignment doesn't exactly match up with the actual month of the year when it's released. But count how many shapes are in a specific row and that will tell you what month it represents - one for January, two for February, etc. So my assignments for the last few months were:

• August - make row for June
• September - make row for September
• October - make row for March

Then in November, we'll have just one more row to make for November.

It helped to cut out everything I needed for all three of the rows I wanted to piece, and then start piecing them. August's assignment was pretty straight-forward, made of QSTs, and a couple each of flying geese and rectangles (see top photo). September was a little more demanding - circles!! Once I was reminded of the technique with the Inset Circle Tutorial (see the August 2024 BOM directions or blog post) by Louise @imfeelincrafty, I was able to move right through all nine of them (see above). Then for October's appliqué assignment, I used a similar freezer-paper and glue stick method to do turned-edge appliqué hand-stitched with Aurifil 80wt thread. (see below)

Also left over from last summer's work on my rows due to running out of fabric, I still needed to add borders along the top and bottom edges of the block for December, so I did that too (see above). But boy it feels good to be caught up on that project. Now back to piecing a big ole quilt back for Minimal Shapes.

Calendar Cascade Catch Up

Back a few months when I began piecing my Calendar Cascade quilt, Seattle MQG's 2025 BOM, I didn't expect to wait quite so long to revisit the project. But time flew by, and finally I managed to catch up and make rows for May, June, and July.

Each month's assignment doesn't exactly match up with the actual month of the year when it's released. Remember, count how many shapes are in a specific row and that will tell you what month it's for - one for January, two for February, etc. So our assignments so far:

• February - make rows for January and April
• March - make rows for July and August
• April - make row for May
• May - make row for February
• June - make row for December
• July - make row for October 

Thus, we're actually 2/3 of the way through the year's rows! The bottom row for December shown above will actually receive borders along the top and bottom edges, once I order a bit more fabric. So I'll add that one day soon. Meanwhile, let's see if I can keep up a little better going forward.

Calendar Cascade :: It Begins

OK! It was time to really get going on this Seattle MQG BOM, Calendar Cascade. I had a couple of hours on Sunday, knowing it would be a busy (not much sewing) week, and dove in. 

One thing to know about this BOM is that the rows are not being created in calendar order. Not sure why, but that's the case, and I'm going with it. So even though I did the first few assigned rows on Sunday, they were actually rows 1, 4, 7, and 8. (Count how many shapes are in a specific row and that will tell you what month it's for - one for January, two for February, etc.)

I was able to get back and do the final (for now) assigned row, 5, and now I'm caught up. For May, we'll be assigned row 2, and I may do it then, or I may wait and batch create several assignments later. We'll see what else is going on. But for now, I'm caught up, I'm liking where it's headed, and am content with that.