Sudoku Quilt

One of my 2021 quilt goals was to work on four old WIPs that weren't touched in 2020.  I started off strong, finishing the Gypsy Wife Sloth quilt back in February, but then got distracted by shiny new quilt patterns and didn't do anything with the goal in Q2 or Q3.  Today I'm happy to report that I have finished a second quilt off of that list, the Sudoku Quilt!

I started this quilt way back in April 2016.  I decided I wanted to make it on a family vacation and even impulsively bought some backing fabric online when I was up in the middle of the night with a child who didn't want to sleep in a strange spot.  That fabric actually got used on the back of my Sparrow Party quilt and might be the reason that I finally pulled out the Sudoku blocks again to finish them up.

The blocks came from a variety of places: testing out new rulers, books, things I saw on Instagram, random ideas for new patterns that I wanted to try out.  They all have a bit of orange in them because the quilt is for my husband and orange is his favorite color.  There are nine sets of nine blocks and I laid them out using a completed Sudoku puzzle as a guide (each block was assigned a number).  The thinner borders within the 9-patches and the fatter borders between the 9-patches mimic a printed Sudoku board.  The blocks weren't all the same size, being made over five years on two different sewing machines, so the width of the thinner borders varies to accommodate that.  Each block was sashed individually in an "L" shape and trimmed to a uniform size before being sewn into its 9-patch.

I carried the orange over into the finishing, quilting it with an orange meander and using an orange plaid flannel on the back.  My entire family is obsessed with flannel-backed quilts and there are arguments over who gets to use them.  This is flannel-backed quilt number four so there are almost enough now for everyone to have one at the same time!  The binding is a black-on-black print from my stash; I had a couple of options and my husband picked his favorite.  It was the one I was leaning towards too!

I know I won't be finishing the last two quilts on the "untouched 2020" WIP list, but I'm still hoping to touch both of them before the year is up.  For now, I'm just thrilled that this one is out of my sewing room and being loved on the couch!