Quilt 85: Hoffman Fabrics' "Super Nova" - DONE!

A couple of weeks ago I started telling you about an amazing panel from Hoffman Fabrics that I picked up when I was in Florida last year.  I was in my favorite US quilt shop and saw a model quilt hanging from the ceiling using that panel - with "Attic Window" blocks.  I thought it was amazing and so grabbed one of the panels so I could make one myself.

Here's a photo of the panel:

And here's my version of the Florida design I saw:

This was a pretty fast quilt project.  All I had to do was decide on how large I want the windowsills to be (the image above has them too large in my opinion, but this is what my Quilt Wizard software renders) - and then go at it.  I opted for very narrow windowsills - 2" wide, in fact!.  I think I only spent a total of 5 hours assembling the top.

Here we are, part way through.  The only tricky part was to make sure I kept the squares cut from the panel straight, so that the red windowsill was on the bottom and the black on the left of each one.  Then I attached the small (1") pearl grey edging.  The photo below shows the center blocks arranged on my bed and ready to assemble.

The resulting quilt was going to be 6' x 6' - definitely the widest I've ever done on my longarm (which sits on an 8' frame).  Fortunately, I was able to do it and get the side clamps hooked on for stability.

As I said... a tight fit.

I opted for the "Blustery Breeze" groovy boards for the quilt stitching pattern, and red thread, which would fade pretty well behind the fabric's print.  One thing I did mess up on, however, and didn't realize until I got to the end of my first end-to-end row of quilt stitching, was that I hadn't considered that the groovy boards (3 of them at 2 feet wide) were the same width as the quilt.  I should have double checked to see where the start and end of the stitching should have been - but I didn't.  So, when I got to the end of that first row... here is where the groovy board ends:

And (sigh) - here's where I am on the quilt when I ran out of groovy board:

The solution, happily, was very easy.  With as much free-motion work as I've been doing, I just free- motioned the edges as shown below:

Nobody, but nobody, is going to look at this closely enough to see that this side of the quilt was free-motioned.  Boy am I ever proud of myself for THIS!

And here we are - the finished quilt!

6' x '6 - quilted on the longarm ("Blustery Breeze" groovy board) - cotton batting

I just love it!  The camera did a good job of capturing the mind-blowing 3-D effect - but of course it's better in person.  I'm delighted with it!

(As always, double click the picture above to see a larger image)

Here's a closeup of the center block, so you can see how the red thread really does fade back into the print:

And here's the back (solid maroon):

I don't always remember to photo the backs, and then I'm sorry later, after the quilt is long gone.  Remembered this time, however!

This one is destined for "Inspirational Quilts" - my favorite quilt charity, which gives quilts to kids in hospital.  This one will be great for a teenage boy, I'm thinking.