Down to the Last Details

I got this finished on Friday evening!  Three months of steady work and it is quilted, and the binding is on now.  I was so happy to finally be done, but I'm going to miss hanging out with this quilt in the evenings!

Actually I do have just a little more work to do on it.

I need to do a little tightening up of some loose stitching here and there.  It shouldn't take me too long to finish.  Can you see how the hexies pull away from each other just a bit? 

There were a couple of blocks that were very bad - I wonder if they were the first blocks she made?  In any case, we want the quilt to hold up to washing, so I'm going to make sure that these seams are secured. 

I did find out that the lady that made this top has had it done for at least 10 years.  At that point she realized that she was not going to be able to hand quilt it because of arthritis, so it's been waiting all this time to be finished.  It finally became an urgent matter when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor several months ago, and ended up in my hands for finishing.

While I do feel very fulfilled when finishing these projects for people, it makes me start thinking about some of my own projects.  This quilt is on my list to be finished - I've even basted it with some lovely wool batting for hand quilting, but it will never get finished if I don't get it started, and I'd love to have it done for fall.  Unfortunately I have one more quilt I've promised to finish first, but I plan to work as diligently on that one so I can get mine done, too! 

Do you have a special project that you need to get working on?  Make a plan today and get to work - you'll never get finished if you don't get started!

Cover for Quilter's Planner, finally finished!

Yay - I finally finished the embroidery on this lovely piece to grace the front of my Quilter's Planner!  I made a big mess in my sewing room finding some fabrics that I loved with it, and put together the cover in quick order :)  I love Jenny's embroidery designs, she has so many lovely ones, plus even a monthly club you can subscribe to!  You can find her blog here:

Jenny of Elefantz

Sadly, I must have been using the planner pattern for a previous year, because when I put it on my planner I found it was quite snug.  Yep, I looked up the current year's size, and it needs to have 1 1/4 inches added to the width of it.  I will remedy that this afternoon so that the cover will fit properly.

In the meantime - here is what it looks like

And the inside:

May is starting to fill up!  Notice what is happening on May 18 and 19? I'll be at Spring Quilt Market in Portland, OR!  I am super excited, it will be my first one - I am going with the staff at Threads That Bind and am so looking forward to a great time of seeing new fabric, patterns and notions!  Plus meeting a lot of people in real life that I only know online - sew excited!!!!

In the meantime, I am still working on hand quilting the grandmother's flower garden quilt, After a month of stitching about 2 hours a day on it, I estimate I have another two months before it's finished.  But that means in two weeks I'll be half done, right?

Have a wonderful Sunday!  Sit down and do some hand-stitching, it's good for the soul!

Linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching 

Crazy Jane - Row I finished!

I am definitely slowing down on my progress, but trying to stay determined to keep working on the Crazy Jane blocks.  Row J had a lot of tough blocks, but it is now finished and added to the rest of the center blocks!

Row J has a ton of applique.  Oh Jane, why did you love making those melons so much?  I think I will take a day and just prep all of them at once, then I can grab a bag and sit down for a bit of applique in the evenings.

When I'm not working on this, that is:

Yes, I've managed to find another person with a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt that needs to be finished!  This one is in reproduction fabrics.  It's queen size and they want each hexagon to be quilted all the way around.  Yikes, I think it's going to take longer than I thought it would.  Last night I found that my thimble had a hole in it and snapped the eye off a needle!  Had to go through my drawers to find a better thimble to use.  I think this is the third one I've worn through now.   

I also have some shirts to finish putting together - I have to put the sleeves on, hem the bottoms and bind the neckline.  They are cute, so I will definitely try to remember to take a picture.

I was trying to take some new quilt pictures yesterday afternoon, but my handsome helper showed up and distracted me - 

He looks really nice on that bright quilt!

Guess I'd better get busy, plenty to keep me busy for a day or two.  Have a happy day!

WIP Wednesday - Quilting like it's 1995

How old are your UFO's?  I've been digging through that box of unfinished Quilt Block of the Month kits from guild meetings and found a nice oldie today!  This one is dated February 1995 - I'm hoping this is the oldest one because I'm feeling a bit embarrassed by the amount of slacking off it appears I've been doing.

I know exactly why I didn't get this one done, too.  I generally wait until the afternoon of quilt guild before I work on my BOM and I know I didn't have time to get this one done in an afternoon.  Plus that, this is a block that you have to applieque!  Yes, the dreaded A-word.  I do nice applique, but I don't particularly like doing it, so I'm sure that helped me decide that I was just going to skip this one.  At any rate, it's getting done now, and will make a nice addition to my collection of blocks!

I'm also working on finishing up this Butterfly quilt.  I have spent a long time hand quilting all the alternate blocks with a pretty design, then machine stitched around all the butterflies.  I'm debating on whether I want to add more machine stitching or call it good.  I'm ready to finish this one up and get to the next one - a Grandmother's Flower Garden in green shamrock prints!  Actually quite pretty.  That is on my list to be basted this evening so I guess I'd better get busy...where did I put that spool of basting thread?

WIP Wednesday - Satin Binding

I am smack dab in the middle of prom season, so not as much quilting going on as I would like, but I did get to finish up a project for a nice lady.  Now, I know that some people will shake their head over her choice of finishes, but it is her quilt, and she can have it finished how she likes....there are plenty of old tops that will be hand quilted and carefully bound in vintage muslin.  But this one, it has a lively pink satin binding and a pretty floral back to go with it!

As you can see this top has quite a few age spots....the piecing is ok - not perfectly flat, but I find that not many old tops really are!  Many of them are quite lumpy and the extra fabric definitely needs "quilted out"!  This one had a very interesting finish on the sides.  Instead of having the jagged ins and outs, this quilter pieced arcs of feedsack (you could even still faintly see the printing on some of the pieces!) set into the sides.  Ingenious!  This is the only quilt I have ever seen done this way.



I sewed the pretty pink satin on with a wide zig-zag and mitered the corners nicely.  This will be a neat blanket to snuggle under when it's finished - I hope she uses pink to do the ties as well.

I had already planned to post about this quilt and how I liked the non-traditional finish and was really affirmed in the choice when I read this article - All Inclusive.  I think it's time all of us quilters stopped turning up our noses at each other's choices in quilting and learn to embrace the fact that there are so many ways to do what we love, and we all just need to support each other in our choices!  This quilt is in no way diminished by finishing it in this manner.  It elevates it from being just a top on the closet shelf and allows it to be used and enjoyed.  Which is really why it was made....after all, no one makes a Grandmothers Flower Garden because it is the only shape you can use to make something useful out of those scraps!  Someone had fun making something pretty out of fabric.  She spent time cutting out those hexagons and piecing them together because she enjoyed the process!  And now someone else is going to enjoy being able to actually use it for a snuggle blanket - it just makes me smile to think about it :)  I hope if I don't get to finish making all of my tops into quilts that one of my kids or grandkids will feel free to finish them however they desire and USE them!!