I finished piecing my Daffodil BQ2 on Friday night. The pattern does not suggest borders. However, I just can’t leave a quilt without borders. To me a quilt without borders seems unfinished. I guess I am just not a borderless kind of gal.

My border dilemma was complicated by the fact that I only had about a 6″ wide strip of the yellow fabric left and absolutely nothing left of the green fabric. In fact, I had pieced together strips of green in order to be able to finish the last couple of blocks. I knew I couldn’t buy any more of the green as I had purchased everything that was left on the bolt. The quilt shop might have some of the yellow left though as it was a fairly recent purchase. Friday was super hot here and I just didn’t feel like heading into town to go to the fabric shop. I turned to my stash. I picked out a blue that picked up the background colour of the blocks and an orange that picked up the colour in the center of the flowers.

I felt like the orange or option #2 was the best. However, when in doubt, turn to your friends. Linda was available to view my two options and lend her assistance.

Here is option #1 with the blue:

Here is option #2 with the orange:

Linda confirmed that orange was the right choice.

Saturday morning we had garage sale #3 of 3. These garage sales are all part of this family’s dedication to a “less is more” attitude that we have adopted. At noon, we decided that we had probably sold all we could sell and we boxed up the few leftovers and delivered them to the grateful ladies at our local thrift shop. Proceeds from sales of items donated to our local thrift shop go directly back into our little town through Community Services. It was important to me that we also respect the “green” approach to disposal and not just fill the landfill. DH and I managed to sort through all totes in the garage and label the outsides with the contents. The floor is now swept and the car is back in its cozy home inside the garage. What a great feeling of accomplishment!

In the afternoon, I tackled that BQ2 again. I was ready to add the borders to that quilt. Borders are usually the stalling point for me on quilt construction and I was determined not to loose the wonderful feeling of achievement from the morning’s activities. I pushed on during the afternoon and finished piecing the borders by evening.

This quilt is now very large–105″ wide x 123″ long. Remember, this was a completed queen size quilt according to the pattern before I added the borders. This is such a cheerful quilt. The flowers are daffodils. April is Daffodil Month for the Canadian Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.ca/ontario.aspx?sc_lang=en Daffodil Days started back in the 1950’s. The daffodil is considered a bright, cheerful flower that creates an atmosphere that radiates hope and faith that cancer can be beaten. Just a side note, the orange fabric I chose, was from the “Quest for a Cure” fabric line. I didn’t know that detail when I was picking the fabric. It seems appropriate that a Quest for a Cure fabric would be used to compliment the daffodils in this quilt. Also, did you notice that the orange fabric was also a dot fabric–I am sure Alex Anderson would be pleased!

This is a picture of the pattern jacket:

Check out Maple Island Quilts website for this and some other great patterns. http://www.mapleislandquilts.com/quiltpatterns.asp

Just a parting shot of the finished flimsy hanging in my yard.