The left side is sewn so you can see how much it shrinks with the seams sewn. It will be about 70" wide when finished.
The Lungwort is very tiny but already blooming. The plants really fill in the area in the summer. There is a Columbine coming up next to it.
The hostas are just starting to grow.
The peonies are shooting up too.
This photo is taken from the kitchen window 5 minutes after I filled the suet cages. Furry raider!
When my youngest granddaughter was about 9 she showed a lot of interest in sewing so I bought her a sewing machine. She did a little sewing now and then over the next 11 years but now she is really interested in it. We cut the 10" squares for her quilt a week ago and then Monday late afternoon she came over and pieced the top. She got that done so quickly that we went right on to the quilting.
She had purchased fleece for the back and I had never used that before for a backing. We decided on organic vertical lines on the quilt and she used my longarm for the very first time.
She finished it about 10:30....6 hours from start to finish. It is for her boyfriend. I am so proud of her for doing a good job on it and for sticking with it in such a long sewing session. It is about 58" x 90".
I was gone most of the day yesterday but I worked on this quilt last night. I unpicked the rest of the pieces and then started sewing some long strips together. It has already shrunk 3" in width. It will be a total of 23" narrower by the time all of the strips are sewn together.
My granddaughter came over late yesterday afternoon to work on her quilt so I did some unpicking in the times that she didn't need my help. I have 4 more strips to add to the right edge and the rest of the pieces for the bottom half. I decided to go with the yellow center because that gave me the lavender breakpoint that touches the center of each side of the quilt. I have to cut loops from the 5th strata for the rest of the pieces.
Dana, you have questions......you are a NO REPLY. I have an email link on my right sidebar.
I pressed the backing fabric and loaded it on the longarm Saturday. Yesterday afternoon I added the batting and top and quilted it.
I did the organic straight line quilting again, no channel locks to keep it straight. The lines are 3/4" to 1 1/2" apart so it is very soft and cozy.
I trimmed it and cut binding from the same dark fabric as the large squares. I did the binding all by machine. It took about a little over 2 hours compared to 5-6 hours finishing by hand. It is 59" x 83" so it is plenty long for a 6' person on the couch.
The backing fabric looks great with the front. All of the fabrics on both sides are batik. I like it a lot better now than I did when it was just a top. I think the quilting pattern looks great on it.
There are 24 fabrics in this Trip Around the World so I needed to unpick 24 loops to be able to decide what will be the center. In this photo it would be the lavender.
I can move the strips from the left edge to the right edge and see every fabric as the center. Look at the bottom right corner above as it changes by one square in each photo.
Since I had predetermined that I want all 4 of the same color as a center I just took photos of a set of 4 strips moved to the right until I had seen every color as the center.
This last photo shows the last color as the center. I think my two favorites are the lavender and the yellow as centers.
I had 3 finishes in March. Two of the tops were made in February and the the third top was finished in June last year. The flannel tumbler quilt is 61" x 82.5", the yellow one 41" x 59" and the plaid drunkard's path (Bouncing Balls) 54" x 70".
I also finished three table runners and one table topper.
I completed two quilt tops. The Trip Around the World top is all batiks and the 9" tumblers are flannel. The tumbler quilt top is 65.5" x 81". I have chosen 3 fabrics to piece the backing so I hope to quilt it in April.
