The Trick or Treat Quilt

I'm working on the fifth block of my A Bountiful Life quilt, which I will show you when it's completed. I'm hoping that this project will be finished in months--not years! The last large applique quilt I worked on was my version of the Blackbird Designs "Trick or Treat" quilt from their book When a Cold Wind Blows. It took me YEARS to finish it--I think because it was so repetitious doing 291 of the same block. I really had to force myself to finish them, and somehow, when I finally was finished, I ended up with 5 extra baskets. I'm not sure how that happened--I must have been delirious!!

I did get a lot of mileage from those little baskets though! If you took an applique class from me at Colorz for Quilts, you will recognize them. I used them to demo the freezer paper/starch method many, many times. 

I liked the way the little bird ended up in this block.

This is the only block that doesn't have the little reverse applique center--I didn't have the heart to cut into the bird!

I outlined and stippled around all the baskets--soooo many starts and stops!! I quilted a "shadow " basket in the "blank" blocks-I think you can see it in the sampler fabric block in this photo. 

This is my border. I got lazy and just wanted to be done with the quilt, so I skipped the  border applique. To make it easy to advance the quilt on my HQ16, I did bead boarding and scallops with feathers inside of them.

I was so happy to be finished with this quilt and have it hang in the Pinetree Patchworkers Quilt Show this June. It won a ribbon, which was a huge thrill!

I couldn't back up far enough to get the entire quilt in the photo. With the
wide border, it is a king size quilt.
Since I used softer colors than the original, and finished it completely in May, I named it May Baskets.

I did kind of miss working on these little blocks after dinner--it got to be an evening ritual.