Orca Bay Spare Parts

My Orca Bay top is done!  I started this quilt last winter when Bonnie Hunter started her mystery sew-along, and most of the blocks were finished as the mystery went along.  When we got to the part about putting it all together, I laid out my blocks and wasn't crazy about the way they looked, so the blocks all got put into a box in the closet.

Every time I opened the closet this summer, those blocks begged to come out and get put together, so last week I finally listened to them and put them all together.  I have to say, they must have spent their summer in the closet doing stretching exercises, because all the string-pieced blocks were really stretchy on one side.  But I battled them into place, and once I got the borders on, I really like they way they looked.  I love the borders on this - I think it adds a lot to the finished quilt. 

I have a few spare parts left over.  I thought I had everything counted out correctly, but it's very possible I miscounted.  There were a thousand parts to this quilt!  I think I'll try to incorporate some of these parts into the label, once I get around to quilting this.

So now I'm ready for Bonnie's new mystery this year.  Orca Bay was the first one I've done, and it was really time-consuming and involved a whole lot of piecing, but it did really use up a lot of stash fabrics (not that you can really tell there's anything missing from my scrap box!).  This quilt kept me busy and out of trouble last winter, so I think I'll try her new one in a couple months.  This was my first try at string piecing.  These blocks aren't perfect, but this is the busiest quilt I've ever made, so I doubt anyone will notice unless they are trying to find problems.  If they're looking that hard, they deserve to be rewarded by finding something!

I also finished up a couple wool pieces -

One is my last wool Mat of the Month from Primitive Gatherings, and the right one is my Banner of the Month.  I'm months behind in the banners - I think this one is either May or June.  I'd better get going on the fall ones!

We've been having beautiful fall weather the last couple weeks - a very welcome change after this summer!

Thanks for stopping by.