Esmeralda

Have you met the princess, Esmeralda?

Here she is.

Esmeralda!!!

I am in love with her.

Esmeralda...aah

Shines & Shimmers

Me: Look, look, these point meet so perfectly.
Paul: Uh Huh.

Me: Love when that happens.
Paul: These points seem a teensy bit off

Me: Who told you to look at that one? In any case, that is a reject.
Paul: Hmmm. So not all points are perfect.

Stacked

Cut

Shuffle

Me: They are better than before.
Paul: Before? You have made this before?
Me: Yes, it is the same design as Mom' Quilt that I made last year.
Paul: Oh the pink/orange one.
Me: Yes

Match

Pinned

Pure Joy of meeting points

Paul: You had a very royal name for it.
Me: Raanihaar, meaning The Queen's Necklace

Staying Organized

Paul: What is this one called?
Me: Esmeralda.
Paul: That is a mouthful
Me: This quilt has been a handful and then some

Square to 8.5"

Cutting Corners :-D

The magic happens here

Squared again

Paul: Handful? How?
Me: It is queen-size, and has a thousand pieces.
Paul: Wow, that is a lot. But still fit for a queen?
Me: Yes, but the colors are softer - not a queen, may be a princess.
Paul: A Princesses' Necklace?
Me: Yes, but that does not have the sound effect. I chose to call this one Esmeralda.

100Blocks!!!

Paul: How did you come up with that name?
Me: I was just thinking of impressive sounding royal names - Desdemona, Esmeralda, Ophelia, Arabella - that are not too common. I like Esmeralda the best. Further, the quilt has shades of emerald green, so Esmeralda.

Design Wall - What would I do without you?

Press Seams Open

Paul: May be you should have spent more effort on matching the points than naming the quilt.
Me: You are banished from Esmeralda's court.
Paul: Is that so?
Me: Till the time you are summoned to fulfill your duties as the quilt holder-upper.

Finished Flimsy!

The fabrics are from Moda's new fabric line - Wild Nectar by Crystal Manning.

I wanted fabrics with a good contrast against the white background. Otherwise it would have been difficult to see the intersecting circles. Therefore, I did not use the two prints with beige background.

Turquoise Border

(But they are already in the next project. Details coming later. Watch this space.)

As much as I love the peach, emerald and gold together, I am convinced that it is the Bella Turquoise border that brings the whole quilt together.  What do you think?

Moda Grunge Pool

The backing is 108" wide Moda Grunge Pool. It is absolutely lovely.

Turquoise, Pool and Admiral Blue - One Happy Family

The quilting is super-simple.
Quilted two inches apart, using my walking foot and one of the decorative stitches on my Janome.

Trimmed & Labelled

Binding in process

The binding is Bella Admiral Blue and I believe it works beautifully.

A pop of binding

I was a bit concerned, that some of the light peach fabrics may not stand out enough from the background, but my fears were unfounded.

So gorgeous!!!

Everyone (I mean everyone) has loved this quilt - quilters and muggles alike. So obviously, I have been showing it off :-)

The illusion circles

The 99 blocks are arranged 9 by 11. The border is about 3.5" .
The finished quilt measures about 80" by 96".

Esmeralda on the Green

Feeling Shy?

With sunlight filtering through...

Although I took over 200 pictures by myself, I wanted just one picture showing the whole quilt - top to bottom - and that proved to be challenging. Even with Paul's help, on a nearby playground with a dozen clothes pegs, Esmeralda struggled to break free. Here are some pictures from our breezy attempt.

Thank you, Paul!!!

Aah the Breeze

Almost still

Taking it down

And Rekha, my buddy at work, is a fabulous quilt model. Look how she owns it.

Thank you Rekha

Beauty

Getting close

Paul: So who gets to snuggle with Esmeralda?
Me: Whoever is worthy.  We shall see.

Now that I have completed this humongous beauty of a quilt, admired here, shown her off and taken 300 pictures, there is nothing more left to do.

Just kidding :-D

I am going to play with the scraps. What I do with them is the stuff of my October OMG. 

Here is a glimpse.

October OMG

I will be linking with all my favorite linky parties. I do look forward to your thoughts.

If you love Esmeralda, and want to make the quilt or a few blocks, please go to the Moda Bake Shop for the complete tutorial, fabric requirements and lots of process pictures.

Chaos and Order

Clay's quilt was well-received. He promptly put it on his bed, took a picture and sent it to me with a thank you note. I was so gratified!!!

Clay's Quilt

And then, the next day, I received a separate card from his wife plus a gorgeous silver necklace that she made for me.

Jewelry + Me = Happiness

My expression says it all.

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So, what else is going on, you may ask.

There were 31 snowball blocks in Clay's quilt. This means there are 31 times 4 = 124 HSTs, tempting me to make something with them.

Bonus HSTs

Working on Clay's quilt, I realized that I have very little purple in my stash. Had to correct that problem.

Purples

In doing so, a couple of other fabrics just jumped into my cart.

What is a girl to do? I lovingly adopted them all.

I was so focused on achieving the July OMG, that the Honey Pot bee blocks had fallen behind. Now, I jumped into it with gusto.

Cute Mushrooms

Magic Mushrooms

The mushroom block was super-fun and so cute. I made two of those.  I also made the tree blocks from a few months ago.

Christmas Trees

This lattice block was a little more complicated. But it still turned out fine.

Urban Woven

There are four more bee blocks to make and one is paper-pieced. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH.

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I do have a goal for August but I do not want to share pictures as yet.  It is a twin-bed size quilt for a boy. Here is the backing and the binding. The blocks are in the process.

Backing & Binding for August OMG

And speaking of wide backing, I bought another one, since Connecting Threads is having a sale on wide backings - 25% off.

Wide Backing from Connecting Threads

As you can see I have plenty of chaos to sort through, projects to organize, fabrics to choose, and a post (or two) to write.

If order comes from chaos, then I am half way there.

So what shall I focus on? The boy quilt, the leftover HSTs, the bee blocks or something else.  What represents chaos for you? Do let me know. I will be connecting with all my linky parties.

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