Trying Something New ...

My son and his girlfriend have just moved into their first home together; I wanted to make them a lap quilt and started Bonnie's mystery quilt 'Allietare' but I wasn't really happy with my colour choices, it was too dull. I shortened the curtains they bought for the sitting room, so I was able to use a bit of the leftover fabric to chose a new scheme. The curtains are a lovely deep fuchsia colour.

I then used my favourite colour tool to pick a triadic scheme of fuchsia, golden yellow and aqua blue

I kept the design very simple, I pieced some blocks using the units I had already made for Allietare and cut 4 1/2" squares for the rest; the cutting and piecing went quickly

 luckily I had a 2yd length of the perfect aqua fabric for the border

I thought about sending it out to be machine quilted but I really wanted to hand quilt this one, I decided to try big stitch quilting for the first time. I marked a simple pattern of overlapping circles It was easy to make my own template - it is just a circle with a radius of 1/2 the size of my squares (2 1/4")

I found some Spagetti thread by Wonderfil in the perfect colour, it is a 12wt cotton and lovely to stitch with

I had some trouble finding the perfect needle for me, I watched several videos on big stitch quilting and each quilter seemed to prefer a different type of needle. I eventually settled on a sashico needle which I think works very well.

I am doing large running stitches instead of a rocking stitch as I would with normal hand quilting - it is certainly going fast!