Black and White and one other color guild challenge..

My quilt guild was invited to participate in the Black and White and One other color quilt challenge at the Mountain Fest Quilt Show 2017. 

I chose a fabric folding technique I found on Pinterest. (Yes, as if I didn't have enough quilt books/magazines on my shelf or ideas in my head to keep me busy for the rest of my life and longer,,, I troll Pinterest almost daily for even more projects to do! I have quite the collection of my own pins now! 😆)

This is the photo that caught my attention. Spotted Stones has a great tutorial. I love Cathedral Window quilts! And the part where I don't have to press a 1/4 seam allowance or turn the block inside out that the traditional Cathedral Windows requires had me completely convinced that I need to make this for my B&W+1 quilt.  If you are curious, I just found a tutorial on how to make a traditional Cathedral Window. But to be technical, truly traditional would be sewn all by hand.  And of course, I started hand stitching one several years ago before our move to MS.  I thought a black background would make the colors of my scraps pop better than the traditional creamy muslin, and I found out quickly that it's really hard to see my stitches on black!!

OK, back to the present...

Prince assesses my small stack of black and white fabrics..

He's not that impressed with them. To his credit, he didn't say a word. However, he had no problem letting it show on his face.

That's OK. I stitched several windows. 

Applique requires very tiny stitches.

One of my finished blocks. Not too bad...

But this one!! Eesh! Those stitches are way too visible!!

No matter how I laid out the blocks, the geometric prints fought with the florals. 

I was starting to get discouraged, almost to the point of scrapping this project and starting something different. 

Part of my difficulties was that I can't see the finished project in my mind's eye. At this point it's not looking at all like I had envisioned.  I assured myself that the sashing is going to make all the difference. I also allowed my self to remove some blocks and make it into a 4 X 4 rather than a 5 X 5. 

I forgot to take progress pictures in my eagerness to see where this was going. I am pleased with the final outcome 🤗.

I removed all the geometric prints and added repeats of some of the florals. Now that I'm looking at the picture, I didn't notice that the rose in the to right corner looks like it doesn't match the other three corners 🙄.   Ya, I'm going to be OK with that though!

You can't really tell that I mitered the border corners. A technique I learned in a class taught by Dawn Lord at the Joann's in Federal Way, WA.  I think she'd be tickled knowing that from now on everytime I do a mitered border corner I will think of her and the 4-part class many of us JoAnn employees took together. Ahh, what fun times!!

So now it's time to think about how I'm going to quilt this top! I want simple. And lucky me! I have a few extra blocks to practice on!!

Sample 1 is really crude, lol. And the thread is too dark.

Sample 2 the thread matches better and a quilting plan is falling into place

Sample 3 -  I tried a lighter color but it's obviously a green and not teal. As I'm changing back to the thread that matches best I wonder "what about white!" It's a bit of a brave move because every stitch will show! I tested on the outside corners and loved the effect!!

One last sample - I added corner triangles so I don't sew into the seam allowance. Now I can get a true idea. And it's perfect!! Well, nearly 😋.

I'm excited. When I get to this stage, when there's no more design decisions to make, I feel like it's practically finished! Nothing will stop me now!!  Tomorrow I quilt!!