Canyon Inn Quilt Retreat 2011

This design began as a mystery quilt project at a quilt retreat in southern Indiana. The original design did not include sashing and it had solid borders with cornerstones; however…since I almost never get a true 1/4-inch seam, and knew that there was little to no chance that all my blocks would line up right, I thought it prudent to add sashing to hide my, uh…hiccups along the way. Hmmm…I may have created a bigger monster by adding cornerstones in the sashing. Well, at least it looks good here. Whether it all makes it into the final design is yet to be determined. LOL

I originally used my actual scanned fabrics herein, which actually look nothing like the ones I settled on….but when I went to email my project, the file size was, well, ridiculous! So, I came back here for some tweaking.

I have all the blocks done and am starting on the sashing. And, I have yet to decide what to really do with the border (I actually had to delete 86 quilts in this project to get it down to just two quilts). I often go to sleep with borders on my brain.

The retreat that initiated this project was in February; hopefully, I’ll have it finished to show at the next one in November. LOL That was my first quilt retreat, my first mystery quilt, and this is my first monthly challenge project. One reason this quilt is so special to me is because my daughters, who live in opposite directions too many miles away, accompanied me on the retreat. My youngest had never even turned on a sewing machine before, yet she ended the retreat with a beautiful sunflower wall hanging that even included hand embroidery…another first! She subsequently got her first sewing machine for Mother’s Day and we all just returned from Michigan’s 2011 Stash Dash…yes, another first for all of us.

So, in celebration of all of our firsts this year, and EQ’s 20th anniversary, this pattern includes 20 white diamonds around the border and 10 multi-color triangles to honor our firsts!