Bloggers Quilt Festival Time

I had this little project started, when Amy sent out that email reminding us of the upcoming "Blogger Quilt Festival". Whew, I had to step it up, to finish in time for it.   Day and night, night and day, even on a trip to New Mexico to see the International Balloon Fiesta... My machine was with me, and running every spare moment! 

That being said, here is what I was up to...

My favorite Scrappy Quilt!

I know many of you know what it is. When I posted this photo recently,

I heard from quite a few of you, that you knew just what I was up to!

:-)

And right you were.

For those who needed another clue... Well, they swim in pods!

Yes they do!

Bonnie Hunters "Orca Bay". You knew it all along.

I downloaded all the instructions a couple of years ago, when it was a mystery quilt (it's now in Bonnie's String Fling book). Needless to say, it was no longer a mystery to me. The only real mystery was, when was I going to start on it!   LOL!!

Once I did, I was hooked.

From these crazy fun 3 1/2" squares pieced on phone book pages,

to the wonderful secondary designs that emerged as I stitched.

Just one problem, after cutting out and stitching 448 black and 448 white hour glass units, 350 black and 350 white triangle units, another 700 black (oh yeah,  you read it right), 112 black, 112 white, and 56 green 2 1/2"squares.

 Those 64 green 5-1/2" blocks that were string pieced and the 72 purple 3-1/2" ones...

I decided that I loved it so much, that it was going to need to be much larger than the  74.5 x 84.5 quilt it was.

Back to work I went cutting and stitching, not one more entire quilt, but two!
I can't even make myself do the math for all three now!
(tee hee)

You see, I wanted a big quilt. A really big quilt.

So big in fact that it lead to another problem.

My bed is a California King that sits very high off the floor. I wanted this to be a bedspread, but my long arm, can only accommodate about a 100" wide quilt, and that is stretching its capability. What to do, what to do???

                                       Remember those Orcas?

I dug out my old McKenna Ryan "Rhythm of the Sea" pattern for them.

With the use of my favorite, Quilt As You Go (QAYG) method, I was able to add extra borders, to this to get the width I needed. You can find additional posts on stretching a king size quilt, here on my blog!
:-)

It really ended up being a little bigger than what was necessary, but I wanted to keep enough of the design continuing on, under the border.

So there you have it, a super king size scrappy quilt!

                        The final size is 125.5" wide x 117" long. It's a biggie.

I am thrilled to say, the only fabric I had to purchase was the 12 yards of backing I used. Thanks to Bonnie Hunter, I was able to use up scraps for this guy!

It really is amazing just how much Bonnie has taught us, in maximizing the use of fabric scraps. 

Bonnie was in Denver the day this was finished. I so wish I had been in her class.

The waiting list was long, and I just didn't make the cut!  LOL, but I have my piece of Bonnie right here, and thrilled I am.

Hope you have enjoyed my journey thru Orca Bay.

You can see more from Bonnie at

http://www.quiltville.com/

She shares loads of free patterns on her site, as well as sharing all her scrap saving tips!  Check it out, I'll bet you have a quilt or two worth of scraps in you sewing room too!

:-)

 A very big thanks to Amy for hosting this wonderful hop. Where we all get a chance to see old friends, meet new ones and just relish in the eye candy, that everyone has to share.

Ahhhhhh...life is good!
:-)
Make sure you visit all the other bloggers participating! You won't be sorry!