Grand Illusion Mystery Big Finish!

This is the last post about my adventure in mystery quilting.  Go to Bonnie's blog to learn more about this fun mystery quilt.  It's time for the final update to show you the finish and to link up with the rest of the quilters participating this year.  You can go back and check out my work on Clue #1, Clue #2, Clue #3, Clue #4, Clue #5 and Clue #6 from the last few weeks.

I'll fill this post will loads of photos of the quilting.  It took me a couple days to get this one quilted.  Quilting is not my full-time job so I have limited time to work on the long arm.  

I did all the quilting on this with my Pfaff 18.8 Grand Quilter on a Grace Imperial frame.  

When I started I didn't want to do custom quilting because the piecing is so crazy I knew the majority of the quilting would be lost.  Then I put needle to quilt to baste and ended up doing a semi-custom job.  The outer border has a long drawn-out meander that reminds me of gentle waves.  With this quilting I defined a top and a bottom of the quilt.  The label helps with this, too.

The inner border has these little S-curves that travel all the way around the border.  

Each of the corner squares for the internal sashing has this kind of wavy line that goes in different directions with each one.  I think it matches the four-patch center blocks and how they seem to oscillate.  

The rest of the field is filled with this meander in orange thread.  The scale for the quilting is between 1/4" and 1/2".  All quilting is hand-guided without stitch regulator.

I finished the binding by machine for this quilt.  After weeks of working on it I didn't want to spend another week finishing the binding.  

You can find the tutorial for my method (I didn't come up with it, it's just the one that works for me) in the sidebar or at this link.

The quilt is slightly smaller than what I prefer on my queen-size bed.  It's just a little too short to get a tuck at the foot of the bed.  I did sleep under it to make sure it worked properly.

The texture that was created after the quilting was done and the quilt was washed is just amazing.  I love the wrinkled look of a freshly washed quilt. 

Here is the label that I embroidered directly onto the backing fabric before quilting.  The embroidery machine tested my patience but it does give all the particulars.  You can see the different quilting motifs from the back really clearly.  

When I put the last of stitches in for the gray (outer border) (I quilted with three different colors of thread for each area of the quilt) I pulled the bobbin case to find that I had less than 1 yard of thread remaining.  This almost never, ever, ever happens.  It was a great feeling.

I received one comment and wanted to share the response.  I respond to each comment or question privately in email (that's how I handle all comments, so if you are a no-reply-blogger you will never get an answer to your question or a response).  I was asked about my colors.  I did a straight substitution for Bonnie's colors.  Here is the breakdown.

My color = Bonnie's color

• black = black (I picked blacks that read towards a brown/gray)
• white = white (my whites read more silver gray than blue or brown)
• red = blue  (the blue and green had pretty much the same value so I made sure my substitutions did, too)
• orange = green (my red and orange replaced Bonnie's blue and green)
• green = pink (I'm just not a pink person)
• brown = yellow (with all the other changes I pulled a really neutral brown for my constant)

If you want to know more about my color choices you should go back to my first post about the mystery quilt where I talk about how I came to choose the specific colors.  

I'll be linking up with the Grand Illusion Mystery Link-Up.  Be sure to pop over and look at all the amazing quilts people have made.  I love seeing all the different colors and fabrics that were chosen.  Each one has a heart of its own and I love that.