2012 BOM Opera

Update 2015April26: This quilt won first place at the QuiltEssential BOM Quilt show.

I decided to try the Block of the Month program at Quiltesstential Co again in 2012. I increased the challenge by doing it in 2 different colour ways. This is the first one called Opera. It is made up of a selection of prints in brown, blue and green with an Asian flair to some of them. I loved the fabrics but once we started making the blocks, and they were cut up into small pieces, I thought the beauty of the fabric was lost.

Once the 12 blocks were done I really didn’t like them. They were too traditional and I wasn’t interested in investing even more money to put them into a finished quilt.

And then I saw some quilts on Pinterest that got my creative juices flowing. I grabbed some large sheets of graph paper and came up with a design to incorporate these 12 blocks into a finished quilt. Here is my design.

It required me to make hundreds of 1″ half square triangles (HST) and about 160 3″ HST. Talk about a make work project. Here is a pile of just a small sample of the HSTs that I had to make. I don’t know what took longer…cutting each HST or pressing each one of them.

I forgot to take pictures of the quilt as I was assembling it on my design wall and I didn’t take any pictures of the finished quilt top. I did manage to find this one picture that happened to have this quilt in the background.

When I loaded the quilt on the frame I had no idea how I wanted to finish it. I decided to just wing it and quilt each of the 12 blocks with whatever inspired me when I got to each one of them. I chose a feather motif for the cream sashing and a swirl pebble for the brown. My new challenge was to try and incorporate some ruler work for the first time. I found it both challenging and helpful in different parts of the quilt.