Where Thistles Bloom

When I had my DNA tested, I expected my ethnicity to be roughly 50% Irish and 50% German. After all, my father was Irish and my mother was German, both of relatively recent migratory history. My father's mother was born in Ireland and his father's parents were born in Ireland. And my mother, and her parents and siblings were immigrants from Europe. I thought I might have a smattering of some other European DNA since my German ancestry didn't come directly from Germany, but from Serbia (which had been Yugoslavia, which had been the Serb-Croat-Slovene State, which had been Austro-Hungary...). But it wasn't my German ancestry that yielded any surprises. As a matter of fact, my DNA results show that I'm approximately 52% Germanic Europe (hmm, apparently, my father must have had enough Germanic ancestry to add that extra 2% 😂). No, the surpise was the 26% Scottish and only 18% Irish! Apparently, my paternal grandmother told one of my cousins that she was actually of Scottish descent, of Scottish nobility, no less. (Though I have yet to verify the nobility part). This cousin told my oldest sister, but my sister didn't tell me until my DNA did. How did I not know this? I don't recall my father ever mentioning it, and he was my grandmother's oldest son. So, if anyone ever knew it, it should have been him. But, as far as I recall, he was only ever Irish, or Canadian of Irish descent. 
So the origin with which I felt I more readily identified - the Irish - was less than a fifth of my DNA! While the Scottish ancestry, which I had no idea about, makes up a quarter of my DNA! I guess that explains why I love tartans and bagpipes.  I suppose I can just say I'm about half Germanic and half Celtic. 
Anyway, I've decided to explore more of the Scottish culture. Maybe I'll even try some vegan haggis for Robert Burns Night. I'm already good with neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes). And steel cut oats. 

I'd been admiring this fabric collection in my local quilt shop for awhile. I especially liked the thistle fabric. And it goes with my Scottish heritage! There were both layer cakes and jelly rolls available, and some precut metres and half metres. So, when the shop had a sale, I purchased a layer cake and a jelly roll. I have a pattern in one of my Craftsy courses that calls for both. If you've been following my blog for long, you're aware of my feelings about pre-cuts and their associated patterns. I find that often, instead of making the process more efficient and convenient, they end up making it more cumbersome and waste a lot of fabric. And using yardage for the patterns would be much more efficient than pre-cuts. But there are a few books and patterns out there that make the best use of them. Unfortunately, the Craftsy pattern fell into the former category, and not the latter. There was no way I was going to fiddle with using pieces of layer cake squares and jelly roll strips and have a whole lot of annoying leftovers. I still can't figure out why people design these patterns that don't use all or at least most of the pieces...
So, I had to find an alternate. 

I had picked up this book at the same sale when I picked up the Northern Star book, and decided to give it a look-through to see what I could find. Unfortunately, most of the patterns don't make great use of the layer cakes. But I found the "Final Four" pattern, that called for 2 layer cakes, much of which was being cut up into 2-1/2" wide pieces. Great, I could probably make it work with the jelly roll and layer cake combo that I had instead. And the finished size was big enough to fit a double bed, so when I got it done, I would finallly have one of my quilts to put on one of the beds in my house. (While I do have both a double and a queen-sized quilt that I made, both of them are very early projects and are in need of repair). 

Once I had all of the pieces cut, I then had to plan the layout. 

It took a lot of planning and fiddling to try to ensure I didn't have the same fabrics right beside each other. 

During the assembly process, I took pictures and kept my cell phone nearby to refer to in order to keep the fabrics in the correct place, and the directional fabrics going in the right direction. 

Meanwhile, I had to decide what pantograph was going to suit this quilt. I considered the Piper, a freebie from Meadow Lyon, which I had already downloaded, enlarged and traced onto a roll to make into a pantograph. But I opted instead to go with Purple Thistles, especially since the thistle fabric was my favourite of this line. 

And those are really huge thistles!

And while I started it way back in April of 2024, I was able to finish it on December 31st, so I finished it in the same year as it was started, which doesn't happen too often for me, especially not for bed-sized quilts. 
Now, to see if I can get quilts made for the other beds in my house. And maybe get a better dust ruffle for this one...