My Possum Magic quilt returns home

On Thursday I received my own Possum Magic quilt back. More than a year after sending away my little green star block, I received a beautiful quilt back from my fellow Possum, Alice.

Here's the centre block I send off back in June 2014:

And here's what I received back this week:

Isn't that fantastic?  Seven lovely ladies, who I didn't even know a year ago, have each added a border that perfectly captures my tastes and colours.  I'm so pleased with how it turned out - the colours, the patterns, the individual fabrics - it's all wonderful.

Lime green is particularly hard to photograph, so here's a close up of some of the vibrancy in this quilt (and the highly accurate precise piecing fellow Possums have done):

I really do hope that the other members of the group are equally pleased with their quilts when they get them back.  I think it became easier to think up borders as we got to know the group members better, but some people think it got harder once they knew more about the person and their likes and dislikes.

My quilt is 84" square, so it fits perfectly on a queen sized bed.

I've started thinking about the quilting and backing already.  The predictable choice would be to use Kaffe Fassett Paperweight in purple, but I've already used that another quilt, so may just be radical and use a green version of Paperweight instead. I have a tiny piece of it in Algae and it looks good against the quilt top.  I intend to hand quilt this quilt with a variety of my usual Perle 8s, but I may also use some of my Dazzle threads from Wonderfil which have a sparkle in them.  I want to bring out the stars and triangles in the borders.

Here's some photos of how my quilt developed.  Each person just did whatever they thought was best for the quilt at that time.  We could give general preferences, but mainly they took inspiration from what other people had done before them.

First border by Sharon of Mother Dragon's Musings

Our Possum Magic round robin started after we found each other through the New Bloggers group back in 2014.  Over 100 people from all over the world joined that online group, but we got ourselves organised and setup a round robin for those of us in Australia and New Zealand.

Second border by Jo of Riddle and Whimsey

 Jo had been in a round robin before, so she drafted some rules, and we all set to work making our own centre blocks.

Third border by Serena of Sew Giving

We had about six weeks to add our borders to each quilt before it was time to send them on to the next person on the list.  The dates were all agreed at the start.

Fourth border by Carla of Granny Maud's Girl

The quilts traveled around in a circle, and the idea was that we would blog about the borders as we completed them.  Unfortunately times have changed, and we all spend more time on Instagram than we do blogging now, but we still got to see updates of how our quilts were progressing.

Fifth border by Jane of Where Jane Creates

We have developed close connections with our fellow Possums while working on these quilts.  Carla, Serena and Jo are in in Perth so they have met up to exchange quilts and brain storm ideas for borders.

Sixth border by Rebecca of One Wee Bird

Rebecca, Alice and I are all in New Zealand. I've become friends with Alice because she lives in Wellington. I haven't met Rebecca yet, but she has a great Kiwi sense of humor, and I'd really like to meet her one day.

Alice's final border

 I'm so pleased I took a risk and joined this round robin. I really didn't know what I was in for, but I've met some great people, and stretched my sewing boundaries.  Plus, I've now got a beautiful quilt top in all my favourite colours. Thank you team!!

You can see the other Possum Magic quilts on the tab at the top of this page.