I was looking for pink binding but soon realized that the backing was more lavender. I found a medium value lavender that I think works well. I got almost 3 sides hand stitched. Just 12" on a short side and one long side to go.
Here are the pathetic signs of spring in this area. The weatherman just gave the 14 day forecast and it is "well below normal" temperatures for another 2 weeks. Tomorrow will be the exception when we get one warm day.
It was 55 degrees with the wind blowing when I went out to take these photos and that did not feel warm. I want real spring!
Wonky 5 finished at 28" x 29.5". I had to go back to 2012 in my blog to know which number this one was. I finished numbers 3 and 4 to send to North Carolina for a gallery show that I shared with a painter in 2013. Now I need to quilt numbers 1 and 2.
I quilted the pastel strippy quilt yesterday.
I did a large meander with hearts thrown in here and there. I hope to get the binding sewn on today and finished by tomorrow night for finish #8 in March.
When I was going through the Philip Jacobs fabrics I found this pastel print with enough yardage for the back of the pastel strippy quilt. I have it loaded on the longarm and need to quilt it today.
It is so hard to pick the best photo of four people. In the best of all of our smiles I had reflections in my glasses. In this one my son isn't smiling as much and the baby decided to swing his arm. Oh well, it still is a good photo. I am SO happy to be in a 4 generation photo where I am the great-grandmother.
The first time I showed this, it surprised several people just like it surprised me that this is how the Vintage Spin blocks begin, a circle that a square is cut out of, lining up the ruler on key points.
Since then several people have asked me what I was going to do with the trimmings. Yesterday at the twice monthly sewing day I finally played with them. I sewed 2 of the pieces together first.
If you look very closely at this photo you will see a clear Plexiglas diamond shaped template on top of the melon shape. A friend made it for me.
I cut out six of them and laid them out in a star pattern. I will lose most of that tiny section in the middle when I sew them together. I can also lay out 3 of them into a hexagon shape but I think I like the star better. This is still at the playing stage. Don't hold me to making what you see here.
Yesterday two friends who rarely ever have the same day off from work came over to sew and chat. One basted two quilts and the other used my design walls and got a quilt top sewn together. I worked on centers for my Vintage Spin blocks. I used the fabric with purple woven in one direction and gold metallic in the other direction. I haven't sewn them in place yet because I'm not positive those are the 9 blocks I want in the wallhanging. I will play a little more with arrangement and then sew centers in. I had to enlarge the circle pattern in the book to have enough overlap onto the wedges.
It is always hard to get a realistic photo of fabric with metallic in it. These are like a shot cotton with metallic thread woven in one direction and cotton in the other. I am contemplating using one of them for the circles in the center of Vintage Spin blocks.
I only have fat quarters of the pastel colors and half yards of the others. I will have to figure out how many 3" circles I can get out of a fat quarter.
Last night I ditch quilted this piece while I watched TV for 2 hours. I made 5 of these wonky pieces when I got home from NC and my solo show in June 2012. I finished 2 to have in a gallery show the next spring and the 3 remaining are going to be quilted this spring. I put facings on them instead of binding so I'll have to go back to my post about that and see how I did it.
Bear Trap, or should it be Bear Traps?, is finished. It ended up about 60" x 75". There are a couple wobbles in the quilting because of the stretchiness of the melon shapes and the bulk at the corners but I'm not taking it out. This will be wrapped around a body, not entered in a show. If you have ever tried to pick stitching with a fine thread out of flannel you know why.
By the way my goal was to finish 8 in March because I only finished one in January and one in February. I had hoped to finish 4 a month when this year started. I have 2 basted so I may hit the goal. Or I could put another small one on the longarm and finish it the same day.....just thinking out loud here.
Isn't this the most wonderful block? I must say it is my favorite one so far. I still haven't decided on the center circle fabric.
I put all of the blocks up on the design wall in no particular order.
I know I want to make at least one 9 block wallhanging and wondered what it would look like if it was all the lightest blocks.
Here are all of the dark blocks so far.
Several people asked what I meant yesterday when I said I had all of the Philip Jacobs fabrics in number order. Maybe this will explain it better. Westminster designers number all of their fabrics and add a few new prints to the line twice a year.
That is how I know that I have every Kaffe Fassett fabric except one. He is up above 100 now with his numbering.
One more flannel quilt quilted this winter....yes it is still winter here, snow predicted tomorrow night. Now we are into the damp cold time period which feels colder than it did earlier this winter.
If you remember when I was making this last year, it is a Karen Stone paper piecing pattern named Rattlesnake. I have renamed mine Bear Trap. It was a bear to quilt too. I knew those intersections were bulky when I made it. I got it trimmed and will choose the binding today and hopefully get it completed.
While I was in the basement I cut 2 more pairs of fabric for the wedges in Vintage Spin. Below is one last photo of the Philip Jacobs fabrics before I put them away. They are in order by number now but that won't last long.
When I asked the parents to be what color quilt they wanted for the baby the dad said blue and gray. Then he said cowboys. So this was my idea of cowboys.
But this was his idea of cowboys - Dallas version.......blue and gray. I alternated H blocks for Baby H with Cowboys fabrics.
Yesterday I met the baby for the first time - my great-grandson. He is a little over 2 months old now. I had forgotten how hard it was to hold a natural smile while the photographer waits for the baby to look pleasant, or hopefully smile.
He's a little cutie and a good baby too. I'll have to wait awhile for him to tell me if he likes his quilt.
I started thread basting this quilt yesterday. About 80% of it is on the table with 20% hanging over the left side. I will baste half, then pull it over and baste the other half. I will quilt this on my Babylock Professional Quilter straight stitch machine.
Last night I got the other three blocks for Vintage Spin sewn but not pressed yet.
Several of my blog readers visited the gallery in North Carolina while my show hung there in June 2012 and met my daughter. Read all about her new venture. You should be able to click on the photo of the newspaper to enlarge it.
I cut 6 more pairs of fabric for Vintage Spin. They are all Westminster fabrics and 4 designers are represented here. There are some vintage Philip Jacobs prints from his first line.
Three rings are sewn and pairs of wedges sewn for one.
We're almost ready for spring to start today. I took this photo yesterday morning and there was a little more melting during the day. I went out to lunch with friends and the air was damp, windy and cold. Friday is supposed to be above 60 so all of the snow should melt then.
I needed to pull some more pairs of fabrics for Vintage Spin blocks and it had been bugging me that I had my Philip Jacobs fabrics in three different locations. I sorted through all of it while I watched NCIS last night.
I did pull some fabrics to use and they are on a third table not pictured here. I have enough for backings in a few prints.
I don't enter every giveaway I see on blogs; I just enter the ones that have an item I would really like to own. Karen at the Selvage blog gives away pincushions quite often and I fell in love with this one. Go here to read how she made it. I thought it was so appropriate to get a green pincushion in the mail on St. Patrick's Day. Thanks Karen!!
She is having another giveaway on her blog today.
I finished the binding last night while watching TV. I really like this bright cheery quilt. It is about 52" x 59". I showed the backing fabrics a couple days ago, 3 strips of Kaffe fabrics with gold/orange in all of them.
In this close up you can see that even though I used a busy print for the binding, it reads as a solid from a distance. If you go back a couple days you can see how I choose bindings.
I baked 2 batches of cookies and finished cleaning up the basement yesterday. I'm expecting the art quilters group today. It is going to be cold but no snow storm.
I decided to play with the border idea for the Mega Churn Dash to see if it is going to work. I scaled my churn dash down to 67.5" square so I could make this into a rectangular quilt unlike the one in the book. I'm planning on a bottom border like the top one which will make the quilt 78" x 103".
I finished the bottom 2 dishcloths just in time for St. Patrick's day. The top right one used up the ends of 6 balls of yarn; not pretty but utilitarian.
This is my final candidate for the binding for this quilt. I pulled three that I thought would work and this is the winner.
I test it by laying a folded edge under the raw edge of the quilt with both the front and back of the quilt showing. That way I know if I will like it with both sides of the quilt.
Here it is sewn on and half of it is hand sewn on the back. All three backing fabrics are shown here.
I spent quite a bit of time in the basement yesterday. This piece has been waiting for its last border for about a year so I finally sewed it on. I will square up the piece so the border will not end up the same size all the way around. I think I have it upside down here...I'll have to check on an old photo of it.
Also while down there I matched up odd sizes of batting with quilt tops. I always label leftover batting with its size and I just updated my list of unfinished tops which has sizes listed also. I just match it with one on the list, then locate the top and hang the batting on the same hanger with the top. Now I just need to choose backings for the 6 I matched up.
I decided not to show the baby quilt I made until I gift it.
I packed up pieces for several projects and went to the twice monthly sew in. I got the rest of the wedges sewn together for Wild Wedding and sewed triangles that will be used in top and bottom borders on Mega Churn Dash. I also sewed a baby quilt top together. I started it Wed. night and quilted and bound it yesterday afternoon. I'll show it tomorrow.
As long as I had the quilting machine turned on I loaded this quilt and quilted it too. With 3 different fabrics on the back and lots of color on the front I'm going to have to hunt for a binding that looks good on both sides.
