To the extent that I am keeping this blog alive it is to catalog finished quilts. Therefore it surprises me that the finish of this epic quilt had not been blogged. Correcting that, here we are almost six years after the finish and eight (!!) years after I started making blocks finally sharing pictures of the finished quilt.
Tula Pink's City Sampler quilt was extremely popular early in my quilting days and has spawned many quilt alongs since its publication in 2013. Having only been quilting for a year, I remember thinking that making these 100 blocks to the books specification would help to improve my piecing accuracy. I happily purchased a few fat quarter bundles and coordinating solids and set off at my own pace to make each block.
I looked forward to taking the time to fussy cut Tula's fabulous fabric and select matching solids. The block construction effort ranges from pretty straight forward to challenging and I love them all.
All 100 blocks were finished in 2015 but it took some time to conclude on a layout. Again at the time there were so many people making this quilt and I was impressed and perhaps a little intimidated by the clever way in which people arranged the blocks. In the end as I had not made the blocks with any forethought as to color, I went with a random block layout and a sashing suggestion from the book in a neutral gray.
Continuing the multi-year saga, in 2017 I quilted this very large quilt on my Handiquilter Sweet Sixteen. By then I had been free motion quilting all my quilts and had been heavily influenced by on-line tutorials, classes and books by quilting master Angela Walters who, it turns out, had quilted the quilt blocks in Tula's book. Therefore, I continued my apprenticeship with Angela and attempted to follow her quilting style on my quilt. I loved every minute.
In conclusion, this is one of my favorite quilts and it began my love for Tula Pink's happy, bright fabrics.
