Japanese 🇯🇵 Gypsy Wife

Here's my Gypsy Wife quilt!!! I sewed the blocks in 2018 as a QAL (quilt along) with two groups I belong to. Then I spent all of January and the first half of February assembling and finishing it, in order to enter it in our quilt show on February 15th.

As it says in the pattern, putting these blocks together "is a journey"! In other words, it's a lot of work, just when you thought you were done with a lot of work, AKA sewing zillions of random blocks! 
Below are my blocks on the design wall. I recommend labeling each one with the finished size in inches. Then when it's laid out on the design wall, you can switch blocks that are the exact same size and spread out the color arrangement. This is before rearrangement:


The pattern makes a quilt that finishes at 59" X 68", which is not a very useful size for me--I don't have any wall space to hang such a big quilt, and it's too fancy for a sofa throw quilt. So after surrounding the body of the quilt with a narrow indigo border, I carried the background strips into the outside and added a 10" border. Halfway there:

Here are my background strips, trying to keep them in order! 

The finished size came out 81" X 90", just right for a full size bed. Quilt top:

I used wool batting and did custom quilting on each block:

All my fabrics are Japanese, either vintage, recycled or modern reproductions of traditional prints: 







Here's my finished quilt hanging at the quilt show:

Below are Sunny's quilt (left) and Arlette's quilt (right):

And here's Jeanette's version:

I was honored to get a second place ribbon on mine:

Gypsy Wife is quite a journey! If you haven't taken the journey yet, I recommend it.


Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy
  
Linking up to: Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Needle & Thread Thursday, TGIFF, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Friday Foto Fun, Busy Hands Quilts, From Bolt to Beauty, Sew Can She, Favorite March Finish.