From this…………..
to this…..
times two!!!
Yes, both quilts tops are done……all borders attached. The binding is cut out and ready to sew together, and the last task to be done is piecing some backings. I’ll go through my stash tonight and pick out some interesting fabrics to make the backs a nice surprise.
I’m very pleased with these quilts and excited to see them quilted. Mostly though, I would love to see them on my cousin’s guest beds!!!! (And maybe sleep under one.)
Bonnie
How do you measure the strips for long borders? I remember when I first started quilting I never measured. I just cut the right width, sewed the strip on to the quilt and cut off any excess. Sometimes it worked quite well and sometimes I had rather wavy borders.
Now I measure very carefully. When the measurement is quite long, it takes some creative methods to get that accurate cut.
Then of course it has to be carefully pinned before sewing. Recently I discovered that if I did my pinning while sitting comfortably in my big chair, instead of hunched over the sewing machine table, pinning was becoming a favorite task!
The red border looks good.
What’s left to be done? The final gold border, the backing, professional quilting, and the binding. It is getting close enough to the end of the long process that I am already envisioning handing over the finished quilts to my cousin and seeing them on her guest beds. It makes me smile.
Bonnie
Yes, I finished the second quilt top for my cousin. Now I just have borders to do.
(tops laying on my guest beds)
I spent time tonight calculating the amount of fabric needed for the borders and decided I didn’t have enough of the red fabric for the little inner border (the cornerstone fabric). I went through my stash to find some matching reds which I can put at the top border where it will fall behind a pillow and not be noticed. I think I have enough of the gold for the wide outer border.
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The binding is done for friend Moe’s little quilt.
I’m ready for more Moe ! ! ! !
Bonnie
As followers of my blog know, I am making two quilts for my cousin. Here is one top completed except for the borders.
Now I am working on the second top. I feel like my progress has been very slow. Of course I do not work on these quilts 8 hours a day. Some days I’m lucky if I get an hour at the sewing machine and some days I don’t sew at all. But still……………..this is a simple quilt pattern and I felt like it should be going much faster, so I decided to do the math. (I’m a retired accountant.) There are 512 pieces in this top which means there are four sides to each of those pieces that has to be sewn, or 2,048 seams (be they small or not) and each of those seams has to be ironed. Then when it is time to sew the long rows of blocks to the long rows of sashing, it all has to be very carefully pinned, then carefully sewn, then ironed again. And of course the whole process needs to be done twice for two quilts. Looking at it this way I can be OK with my slow progress. Besides - 1. It is for my cousin who I love, and she loves me and forgives me my slowness, 2. I love working with the colors and fabrics, 3. It gives me purpose in my sewing, 4. It keeps me from eating popcorn and doing jigsaw puzzles all day!!!
Bonnie
For Judy’s 2012 UFO Challenge, #5 was chosen for January. It was a worry for me because even though the quilt was made, it was at the long-arm quilter (Country Threads in Garner Iowa) and I didn’t know if I would get it back before the end of January. BUT, it came today!!!! I immediately dropped everything I was doing, sewed on the binding, and hand sewed the binding to the back. Here it is….
It is a small quilt, made from a charm pack called Cherish Nature (don’t know the manufacturer – I bought it long ago).
Here is a close-up of the quilting.
And here is the pieced back.
I think it looks nice on my entry dividing wall.
Now I am excited to see what number Judy draws for February.
My niece, Becky, got her #5 done also. Go take a look – Mustard Seed-Becky.blogspot.com.
Bonnie
How big is your design wall? I thought mine was pretty decent sized, but in laying out the rows of blocks for my cousin’s quilt, there are three blocks falling off each end of the board.
That doesn’t work too well when deciding the arrangement of the rows. So my solution was to lay all the rows out on my queen-sized bed.
Putting numbers on each row will keep everything straight as I add sashing and sew it all together.
Still a lot of sewing ahead of me, but once it is all organized, I feel better able to tackle the assembly.
Bonnie
The chocolate cake I made yesterday was for the Bee Group that came to my house tonight. Here is a picture-heavy blog-post of our Show-N-Tell.
Wonderful red and white combination.
We all agreed that the wide rick rack adds the wow factor to this quilt.
Seed packets for the gardener.
A Christmas wooly block of the month.
This quilt has some wonderful soft fuzzy blocks, and….
I just love the backing fabric.
Simply spectacular!!!!!
An almost-finished table runner with great fabric.
And a broom wall hanging for the kitchen door – so adorable.
And lastly a colorful charity quilt.
The cake was very good, but there is a lot left over. It’s January and quite a number of the ladies were skipping the extra calories!
Bonnie
