Sunday, January 1, 2012

Orca Bay Mystery and UFO #5


I love Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery quilt! She revealed the finished quilt yesterday and I just gasped! I finished all the components, squared them all up and put half of them on my design wall today ('cuz my design wall isn't big enough for all the blocks). I'm in love with it! I didn't use the colors Bonnie suggested--these are MY colors, and I just hoped they would work as well as hers. What do you think?

I named it "Azalea Bay" because of the colors. There are 3,564 pieces in this quilt and so far, I've put 47 hours and 20 minutes into it's construction--worth every minute! After sewing it together and quilting it, there'll probably be more like 70 hours into it. But I loved the process, learned a lot and will do another Bonnie Hunter mystery again in a heartbeat. (I have a different post about this quilt and the process of making it on Bonnie's blog that you might want to look for).



I'm also doing Judy's UFO Challenge and this is my #5 for January: "Anteitam". This was a Linda Ballard mystery class my quilt guild did and I just love the quilt and the colors. The top is finished and I'm looking forward to quilting it but I just hate to pin quilts! I don't have a good place to do it and I can't get on the floor any more as it kills my back. But, I will get it done!

See what everyone else has to show on Judy's Design Wall Monday! I always learn something new from going to everyone's blog.

13 comments:

Sally Hamilton said...

Your colors for the Orca quilt are amazing. Beautiful.

Angie in SoCal said...

I've seen quite a few Orca Bay quilt tops and love your colors the best!

Both gorgeous quilts.

Judy D in WA said...

It's fabulous!!! I love the colors you chose for yours. I thinks it's going to be hard to top this one but I bet she does. LOL
Love your UFO....

Jennifer Woo said...

The Orca Bay quilt is fantastic!! Love it. I hope to be finished with Tranquility by the weekend. I hope to start it today, if I can put down my current applique project or my hand quilting project. My idea of Tranquility changed over the holiday so we will see what happens.

Debbie said...

Love your Orca Bay...the name Azalea Bay is perfect. Very fun to see it in different colors.

Denise :) said...

Your color interpretation for the Orca Bay is simply stunning! It is probably one of my favorites!! Really, this is beautiful!!! :)

Gale Yawn said...

love, love, love your colors. Before you add the border go back and fix those pink string blocks that you have turned the wrong way. Look at each diagonal line and all the strings should go the same way. Otherwise, a fantastic job, as usual.

The Nifty Stitcher said...

Your Orca Bay has turned out just beautiful. Gorgeous colours and a great result!

Unknown said...

Azalea Bay is beautiful!

Sheila said...

your quilts are lovely. About the basting have you seen the method sharon Shember uses.. here is a link to a U tube video, if it doesn't work just google Basting a quilt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhwNylePFAA

Barb in Mi said...

Beauuuutiful Orca Bay! Love your choice of colors! And Anteitam looks great as well! Happy quilting!

Candace said...

All I can say is wow. Your colors and Bonnie's pattern are awesome together. The #5 quilt is pretty gorgeous too. The number 5 is outstanding in itself, lol. I don't pin baste, I use Sharon Schamber's board method and it works great for me. I have a square table 3 feet by 6 feet, and the board method works well for quilts up to about 5 feet wide. I recently finished my Iowa (Carolina) Christmas and used the same table without the boards, clips around the outside, started in the middle, basted with Sharon Schambers method, and then just moved and smoothed until it was all done. I'll do that for my enlarged 92 x 102 Orca Bay (Sunrise Sunset) too. I didn't have any tucks and it took away my fear. I sit down to quilt and so my back and knees thank me.

Diane said...

Your colors are fantastic-it's great to see it in a different colorway!
have fun quilting this one and your ufo