Dancing Queen......

You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen....  - remember that glorious song by ABBA?   The song was so stuck in my head while I was quilting this quilt - Dancing Nines by Bonnie Hunter.

Back in October 2016, Bonnie Hunter was booked to come to a local group and teach, however, her trip to Australia was cancelled, but she did graciously allow us to still make one of her patterns.  A very clever and super fast sewing member, M, of our group, made her own Dancing Nines quilt and then proceeded to host and guide us through the day.

I cut up all of my Batik scraps in blue/green, plus a jelly roll.  There were hundreds of squares to be cut up, including a few little pink/red/orange ones for interest.

I laid out each of my nine-patch blocks individually.  That was my personal choice because I wanted to use up the fabrics evenly.

Very addictive, once I had made one block, I just wanted to keep on making more and more....

 Eventually the time came to put them together into a quilt top.  The sashing fabric is a very soft pastel batik green with leaves on it.  Making the individual blocks and then putting them all together was an absolute joy.  A very quick, fun quilt to make - did I mention addictive blocks?

I cut out the border pieces while cutting for the main quilt top.  I love how the border surrounds the blocks to give a nice frame, and the little peep of burnt orange/red to separate the centre from the border.

The binding is the same fabric as the inner narrow border.  There is the most subtle of gold metallic print on it.

And the backing, a lovely, very indulgent purchase of blue/green batik....

 

This is the first really big quilt that I have quilted with my new sewing room set-up, and I think I am going to have to make some changes to stop the quilt from sliding off my sewing table, especially at the back.  It was very hard work to quilt the borders because the quilt kept on falling of the table.  My piano key quilting is very wonky... ho hum...