A totally groovy finish

Eeeeep! Groove is finished! In time for the QAL no less. I am a little in shock that it's actually finished (I have a really terrible history with QALs).

This is a long and very photo heavy post - you have been warned ;o)

This quilt began when I bought Emily Cier's Groove pattern just after it was released - it was instant love. So when Alyssa at Pile o' Fabric announced the Totally Groovy QAL a few months ago it was the motivation I needed to make a Groove. Long story short, I'd had a few yards of this in my stash for a looong time:

Perfect backing for Groove. I grabbed my Kona colour card and matched Kona Black, Chartreuse, Willow, White and Azure for the five colours. Once I had the fabric at hand I used my Aurifil cotton mako colour chart and matched the thread colours as best I could. They're pretty spot on apart from the Willow - but I'm pretty happy with how it looks.

Fabric from The Fat Quarter Shop, all Aurifil Thread from Always Quilting

I chose a different quilting motif for each colour and went for it - some of the motifs I'd done before (echo shells, pebbles) but the others were new to me. There is a bit of a difference if you look at where I started the azure section compared to what it looked like later in the quilting - but I'm too impatient to practice, so I'm okay with it :o)

It's taken the last 5 weeks or so to quilt it (a few hours at a time) and I have enjoyed every second. I have learnt so, so much while quilting this quilt - and it's given me loads of ideas for how to quilt some of my WIPs.

I didn't have quite enough of the print for the back, so one corner is azure (I was way too impatient to start quilting to do a proper pieced back.)

But I matched my bobbin thread to the top thread for all the quilting, so that azure section shows a glimpse of the quilting on the back.

These first few are taken in our springtime garden.

On our balcony:

We went to our local botanical gardens today - so the quilt came along for a few (hundred) photos. Our botanical garden is one of the oldest in Australia, so it has some pretty good photo spots.

These are my favorites - I love, love this wall.

If you're still here, well done ;o). Thanks for all your lovely comments along the way with this one - they really motivated me to keep going.

Hope everyone who is not at SS is having a great weekend - and grudgingly I hope the rest of you are having a brilliant time too ;o)

xx Jess