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!

Hopscotch Quilting

I got a text today that Hopscotch was going on the long-arm quilting frame!

A little while later, some proof of the action in progress!

Hope to be binding this one before week's end! Pretty exciting stuff!