The Bonnie and Camille Quilt Bee Book came out in 2021 featuring several well loved projects of all sizes, including the Shine On Sampler. Fat Quarter shop has done 2 stitch alongs (in 2 colorways) with the cross stitch pattern of this book. I starting this project 2 years ago, absolutely in love with the idea of have a quilt in cross stitch form.

This year I have a drive to finish up my Works in Progress. I spent all of February hyper-fixated on this project. I sewed on it every morning, during my lunch break at work, at a doctor’s appointment, and in the evenings.

This project taught me a ton of lessons over the past 2 years. To me it’s visible how far I’ve come from the top left corner of the first block, to the bottom right corner in the final stitches.

The project started in hoop, and I moved to stitching in hand by the end. I experimented with lots of starts and stops and found my favorite methods for different scenarios. I take more time to have a tidy buried thread in the color it matches.

Since this was my in my hands for a long amount of time, I did my first cross stitch wash. You can watch the process over on my youtube as I documented the final steps to put it in the frame! Link to Video