CCCQ First Year Finish

I received a photo this week from Kathleen Connor in the north west hills of Connecticut.  She's a CCCQ fan and has made this quilt top from The First Year patterns.  Not only does she have a finish, two of these blocks are Kathleen's own design.

I asked Kathleen about her journey with the Chester Criswell Quilt.  She says,

"I've enjoyed every stitch I took for this quilt! The first Chester Criswell block I made was Jane Wilson's block, #1. I found that I loved doing the one piece, papercut style block with needleturn applique. Next up was Block 2 which reminded me of the traditional leaf and reel blocks found in many antique quilts. Sharon's patterns were a joy to work with, well drawn and not difficult to stitch. At that point I thought of making a 9-block quilt with the leaf and reel style blocks balancing "square-shaped" blocks like Block #1. I knew I wanted to put the circular Block 4 in the center; this is my favorite block though it's hard to choose a favorite, isn't it?

I designed two new versions of reel blocks for the quilt.  I thought I'd design an applique border for the quilt, but when the blocks were put together with the sashing, I visited a new-to-me quilt shop and found the perfect large scale paisley. I'm going to hand quilt around the edges of each applique motif. Then I might do echo quilting in the background of each block, or I'll do diagonal quilting lines across the backgrounds and sashing. I had better decide soon!

I've had a great time with this quilt, and I plan to use more Chester Criswell blocks in a future quilt."

Thank you very much Kathleen, for sharing your work.  I'm impressed with the way Kathleen's new designs blend with the old.  Every one has favourite blocks ... and not so favourite blocks.  If you don't like the block you have to make next just replace it with one of your own. 

Another CCCQ fan, Wanda at Scrap Happy aka Blended Quilter, is looking for a swap partner for Block #24.  If you're interested just hop over to her blog.