Round and Round (Full Circle Full Frontal).

It's done! My Robert Kaufman Kona Solids quilt challenge for the VMQG is complete. You've seen the pieced top, then the beginning of my concentric circle quilting. Now, I present Full Circle to you....

Thank you to everyone who 'voted' for charcoal and celery binding. The results were about even, and as you can see, I decided on celery because I liked the look of the colour blocks floating on a sea of green.

Why Full Circle? Well, first of all this quilt was always intended as a relief quilt for someone who has suffered loss from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan; my hope is that this will bring them warmth and comfort as they work through their grief and regain their home, work and community (hopefully, one day, coming full circle in recovery). Secondly, after piecing the quilt top, I really thought of the west coast sunset. My mind then wandered to the Ring of Fire...the chain of volcanoes that geologically connects our west coast with Japan, and how it forms a circle around the Pacific nations. Finally, the quilt just seemed to be calling out for concentric circle quilting. I changed thread colours as I moved outwards from the golden squares into the rusty reds, dark brown/black, blue/purple and finally green. I kept the bobbin thread dark grey.

After the kids were off to school yesterday and I walked into the dining room to begin darning in my thread ends (yes, I tie the top and bobbin threads with a double knot, then bury them into the quilt batting using a Fons and Porter gold-eye self-threading needle. I don't like the look of backstitching on the front of a quilt) and lo and behold the sun was shining through the window for the first time in DAYS. I moved the quilt around to line up the sun and the shadow of a glass star that hangs in our window over the 'sun' in the quilt. Pretty.

The back of the quilt is made up of a few 1/2 yard cuts I won at a retreat a few years back. They are not my really my colours, so they've been curing in my stash since the retreat. I was very happy to use them in this quilt because they are from a Japanese-inspired Alexander Henry collection and Kona charcoal goes great with them!

After my last post, there were several questions about my process for the quilting. I took some photos and have used flickr descriptions to describe it all for anyone who is interested. Just so this doesn't become The Longest Post Ever, you can click here to take you to the Seam Guide Quilting Tutorial set on my flickr page. Click on each photo in the set for a description that explains how to quilt an entire quilt with parallel lines. You only have to mark the first line!

To all of you Canucks fans out there - enjoy tonight's game!! Go Canucks Go!!! And to all you Commonwealth readers, have a wonderful long weekend. I wonder if Queen Victoria had any idea we'd all celebrate her birthday by opening cottages, grilling steak and downing beer. Hmm.

Since I don't have a cottage, or drink beer, I'll be in the garden, pulling weeds to give the perennials some real estate for the summer....