Beast of Burden

In November 2019 our quilting group conducted a weekend quilting retreat.  During this weekend we agreed to participate in a block exchange. I was a little reluctant to take on a new project, but one of my wish list quilts was to make a cheddar colored civil war quilt. I decided this was the perfect time to tackle that quilt.
The rules were easy -  we would use light and dark civil war reproduction fabrics to construct 60, 6 1/2", nine-patch blocks, to exchange with each of the 12 participants. This would give each of us 60 assorted colored blocks.  We would exchange these blocks in February during our winter weekend retreat.  This gave all of us a few months to make our nine-patch blocks and decide how to incorporate these blocks into a quilt.
Coming up on the February retreat the ladies were getting excited to put these blocks to use.  We came to the retreat with a plan and ready to tackle this challenge.  We were on a mission and the results were beautiful. The assortment of fabrics used are stunning.
I don't recall anyone completing their quilt that weekend, but they certainly were pretty close to putting on the finishing touches.
Now here comes the "beast of burden".  Of course I couldn't settle on using only 60 nine-patch blocks, I wanted more.  In fact, I ended up making a total of 130 nine-patch blocks for my quilt.  Also, I wanted the blocks to be connected with the cheddar fabric in a zigzag pattern on point.  A lot of thought went into the construction since I had no pattern - just a vision.
Yesterday  I used 14 fully wound bobbins and spent about seven hours on my longarm quilting this beast. It finished as a 97" by 96"quilt. The result is exactly what I hoped for.  I love this quilt.  It also feels good to check off a project from my wish list.

Block exchange quilt I call Beast of Burden

Close up of quilting

At the time of this posting the other ladies have not shared their finished quilts.  As they do I will share pictures.