A very good finish - Carte postale du Treport

Nothing better than a deadline to keep me focused. Sometimes, it seems that I can only accomplish something if a deadline is looming, I seem to need the last-minute stress. Anyway, last Saturday was my cousin's 30th birthday and I was determined to finish her quilt before her birthday party or to bin it (I didn't want to stash it away until her 40th :-) ). And I hate binning fabric that I have bought and spent time working with. The reason I was so determined to finish it this year was because this is one of my oldest UFO. I initially started that quilt for her 20th birthday (yes I know, that's 10 years ago...) and when it didn't get anywhere near finish, I stashed it away for later. My cousin has always liked lighthouses so this pattern from Magic Patch at the time had seemed perfect for her....

Later had finally arrived earlier this month when I pulled the bag out and discovered that there was so much more to do than I remembered as I had only completed 2 sections of the sky.

Anyway, I spread everything on the floor, changed the technique I was using 10 years ago (without thinking of reversing the pattern...) and decided too get going, one section at a time to avoid getting too confused. A lot of paper piecing later, the background was starting to take shape finally.

(I must say even with the deadline looming I did find it hard to work on it, probably because I wasn't sure how I was going to work on the lighthouse as I decided not to follow the pattern by then). I was sure I wanted to take inspiration from the lighthouse in Le Treport where I spent a lot of my beach holiday as a kid and was the place where our common great-grand parents lived but I wasn't entirely sure how to make it!

So I redrafted the pattern on paper and hoped for the best!

I must say it worked quite well, if I say so myself!

And of course over the last 10 years, I had managed to find the perfect backing fabric!

And with just 2 evenings left before we had to leave for the party, I started quilting: clouds and some seagulls for the sky, waves for the sea and 2 boats.

I felt the white in the lighthouse needed some quilting too as it looked too much "in your face otherwise" so I went for some easy loops.

And what better for the path to the lighthouse than pebbles? Nothing really considering the beach there is covered in pebbles - but that's not the best choice on a tight deadline!

I love the texture the quilting brought to the quilt, quilting brings such a new dimension to the fabric, I love it.

Of course, the hand sewing of the binding kept me occupied on the way back to France and also all morning before the party. But then, I did it, the quilt is a UFO-no more and I am very proud of this particular finish. It wasn't an easy one, it was quite a time consuming exercise but I grew more found of the quilt as it took shape and ended up loving the finished item.

Stats:
Fabric: various blues from my stash collected over the years, Kona white, green  and meadow flowers
Size: about 36' by 75'
Paper pieced background, lighthouse pieced with the top applique.
Free-motion quilting on my home machine.
Started in 2005 and finished in 2015!

So this is my first OPAM this month but this also my Lazy Bums challenge for May and my Lovely Year of Finishes challenge and finally one of my Q2 Finish Along.

Linking to Whoop Whoop Friday, Let's Bee Social.

Celine