Modern Red Rectangles - A Finished Believe Circle Quilt

In December, it was my turn to choose our design, and I chose simple blocks in red and neutral.

They don't look like much individually, but put them all together and they form a stunning modern design.

I love how, with some general guidelines, a group of blocks made by ten different quilters can result in such a lovely finished quilt. And I also love that these projects help use up fabric stash that may have been around for quite a while.

Sometimes it is more than fabric stash that gets used. Thread stash needs help from time to time as well. As you can see, I have tried a wide variety of thread over the years. I'm a fairly die hard Aurifil fan these days and I was ready to see some of these older threads go, especially the ones with such a tiny amount left on the spool.

Normally, I lean toward neutral colors for quilting but for this project, it was going to be all red all the way. What a great way to use up some of that lingering thread stash. The wavy horizontal quilting lines have become one of my favorites for adding texture without overwhelming the quilt.

It's always a tension risk to mix up weights and brands of thread and I thought I was being careful each time I changed thread, but apparently I was not being careful enough. Fortunately, this only happened for a few rows, so the unsewing was not too overwhelming.

Look how much thread was used! Now there is more room for trusty Aurifil.

This is why I don't like using most other thread brands. The lint and build up is so heavy. This is not good for your sewing machine. A good cleaning is in order before the next project begins.

The quilt back includes two extra blocks from the twenty blocks made by our circle.

There was enough extra from one of the backing fabrics to use for binding.

Now to throw this quilt in the wash with three or four color catchers. Hopefully, they will keep those reds right where they belong. The Believe Circle of do. Good. Stitches sends most of our quilts to My Very Own Blanket, an organization that gives quilts to foster children so that they will have something that belongs just to them and can stay with them no matter where they go. That is where this quilt will be shipped later this week.