sunny geese, a finish

this quilt is one pile of sunshine and happy!

i've taken photos of it a few times and neglected to post it as a finish. so now you're going to get a couple different views of my very cheerful "sunny geese" quilt.

it's composed of yellow and low-volume hsts set in a flying geese arrangement.

i'd say at least half the yellows are blender prints selected for their color rather than florals or geometrics that i like as stand alone prints. it was hard to find yellows in the sunny range i wanted - not too soft and buttery, not to gold or brassy - that weren't blender prints. there was one heather ross "sleeping beauty" print that was the absolute perfect color. i had a few other lovely florals, including some liberty tana lawn, which played very nicely with everything else.

the low-volumes are mostly black and white prints, but there are some that have yellow, grey, or light tan in them, too. i also used a yellow liberty "betsy" in a few places. it's not as light as most of the background prints, but it was too light to use as a yellow. having a range of volume even in the low-volume gives more depth to the quilt.

the prints are all small to medium in scale, which works nicely with this size block and arrangement. i'm not opposed to cutting up large scale prints for such a project, but i do like that you can tell what each one is in this quilt.

the binding is a classic black and white stripe, which sets off the sunny yellows so nicely.

i happened to get a bit of machine oil on the quilt and needed to soak that corner, which i did in  my bawthroom sink. oddly, it looked so pretty and at home there that i had to take a picture! it's probably my most liked photo on ig this year. the lighting in there is so nice that it's a great place to take quilt photos, albeit a strange place for a quilt, even if i did do all my quilting in my bawthroom once apon a time. 

"sunny geese" measures 56"x64" and is composed of 4"hsts (or 4"x8" flying geese).

that's 224 4" hsts total in the quilt. when i make them, i always overcut my squares and trim down with the bloc-loc 6.5" hst ruler. my formula for knowing what size squares to start with is start with a square 1" larger than the finished hst will be. so, here, for 4" hsts i started with 5" cut squares, made the hsts, and trimmed down to 4.5" hsts, which finish at 4" square once sewn together.

i thought an outdoor photo in my citrus mini orchard, which was blooming at the time, would be a nice setting for this quilt. but it didn't do much for me. i think the indoor photos, even the bawthroom photo, show it off much better.

i like to take flatlay photos of my quilts on my bedroom floor, me standing on the bed over them. it works pretty well. but i'm also supposed to crop the photo and get the bed out of there - haha. looks like i forgot this time.

the backing is composed of yardage from an older two-toned white and yellow "october afternoon" floral print i've had for ages on one side, and pieces of a favorite ditsy low-volume print and some heather ross yellows on the other half.

i used a cut of the sleeping beauty print because it's so pretty (and ordered more for other projects) and i wanted to highlight it a bit by putting a chunk of it on the back where it would be noticed as a large piece. the honey bears and paper hats were prints that came in a fat quarter pack i ordered and i didn't think i would be able to use again, so i used up the rest in the backing. since they worked well in this quilt, i thought i should use them in a place i knew i liked them. however, i have decided i like the honey bears and could use them again, so i got a bit more of that, too. they seemed like such odd prints at first and i wouldn't have ordered them on their own if they hadn't come in the bundle. the paper hats are a deep goldy yellow and although they fit in this quilt, i think i'm done with them.

 

this was an easy, classic kind of patchwork to make and a very satisfying finish. all that cheerful yellow just makes people smile. the quilt now resides in our family room and gets lots of snuggles every day.

on mother's day, i happened to be wearing a yellow dress and couldn't resist taking "sunny geese" with me to church instead of my usual lap quilt. these geese are well behaved and welcome wherever they go.

instagram: #sunnygeesequilt