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Here you can see the progress of the quilt:

Now that the blocks are done, I have to hunt for sashings and borders. I have no idea what I should choose. And my favouritve fabric is no longer available here.

The result: I found a solid red for the sashing. I have enough fabric left from the blocks for the cornerstones, one border and the binding. Best of all: I have enough fabric left from the flowerprint to cut all the triangles for the on-point-setting. So all I had to buy was fabric for the second border in blue-green.

Handquilting!

Yes, I will handquilt this quilt, too. It's too beautiful to be quilted by machine. Even it it means that it will be finished in two years instead of two weeks.

I spent some time to think about the patterns. I don't want to quilt along the seams as I did on the Ice-quilt. I want to try something different.
Somebody in my yahoo-group recommended the book 'Loving Stitches'. The patterns are sorted by purpose, not by the year as in 'Quilting Designs from the past'.

I choose a simple overall-pattern, the fans. I think it's good to use a pattern where the lines cross the seams, I hope the seams will hold better. The quilt-top is so busy one couldn't see a complicated pattern like feathers anyway.

But I will quilt feathers along the border!!!

The quilt is on the frame, since September 1st, 2015.

During quilting

25.03.16: Half of the quilt is done - if I continue in that manner, the quilt will be finished by Christmas!

1.07.16 - oh no!

I'm quilting happily for months now und I can see how the remaining piece of batting - which hangs between the rails - gets smaller and smaller. Now there is only a small piece left, maybe 6 inches. Great! Almost done!

But - the top on the third rail is not yet finished. I can see the end of the last block, that means there is still the whole upper boarder hidden on the rail. But the batting will reach only unto the end of the last block.  ??

Is the batting too short? But I had measured carefully one year ago! And it is wide enough, I always have to cut away 5-6 inches on each side of the batting. 5-6? That means 10-12 inches too wide?
The quilt is not a square, but a rectangle. Oh my god - did I mix width and length when I put the batting on the quiltframe???

It seems so. I swear this happens only once in a lifetime to a quilter. The next time I will pay more attention!
How to lengthen the batting? It's easy in theory, add another strip of batting. By hand as I did for the buzz-saw-quilt or by iron (there are special fusible strips for this purpose).
But in real life it's a huge problem. There are only 6 inches left, the rest of the batting is already quilted. And it's not easy to iron two pieces of batting together with a fusible strip while everything hangs down between the rails! Same problem with hand-sewing.

Of course I always could take the whole quilt of the frame, add the strip and readjust it to the frame. But I dread that. I don't want to!!

Here's what I did:
I opened all the levers of the 3rails und rolled the quilt backwards as far as it went. Then the remaining batting stuck out behind the last rail (the one with the top on it) for about 4 inches.
I folded my ironing board to a much lower hight and shoved the board close to the rail, so the batting laid on the board. One cutting mat below the batting on the board, the additional piece of batting on top and here we go! I was able to cut both battings with the rollcutter in the required soft waves. I sewed the extra piece by hand to the main-piece, it was a piece of cake  :-)

It worked, I can continue quilting!

And now the end is really near. I turned the rails  - and I can see the rear border.

The end is near, there is not much fabric left!

Done! The handquilting took 12 months and 2 weeks.