In a bind

I currently have 7 quilts piled on my loveseat waiting to have the binding handstitched down!  This has been the month of finishes.  Earlier, I got a box with three large quilts back from my longarmer and the good news is that all of them are completely done!  I have a new project that I am excited about so I made myself finish up some of the projects that have been sitting around--many of those were sandwiched, waiting to be machine quilted, so I have been busy doing them.  Once I'm "in the groove" with free motion quilting, it is easier to keep doing it, so I have really been having fun.  For me, free motion quilting is almost "zen like."  I become one with the quilt!  Needless to say, it is not the time for audiobooks.

I"m hoping to have a week's worth of blog posts about some of these finished quilts, so stay tuned!

First I would like to talk about the binding on my Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilt.  It is one I got back in the mail and was the largest of the three, and way heavy, so I procrastinated doing the binding.  RRCB was a mystery quilt featured on the quiltville.com website.  Bonnie designed it with pinks, greens, browns, red, and creams, but I decided to do mine in an Americana color scheme, so it is in reds, golds, med blues, navy, and creams.  I think I was planning on using navy blue for the binding, but one day while browsing the online quilt shops, I happened upon a red, blue, cream, and gold stripe by Jo Morton that looked perfect for my quilt, so I got a yard to use for binding.  I love playing with stripes and plaids for bindings.  The stripes were printed on the fabric at a 45 degree angle, so when I cut them on the bias, they were running perpendicular to the length of the binding.

The first thing I noticed when I tried to sew them together was that the pattern was directional.  The stripes would only match up one way.  Okay....

I figured that out and then tried to match them up and they were not lining up nicely.  Sewing on the diagonal and matching stripes just doesn't work too well, so I went on to Plan B

I pressed under one end of a strip.

And then laid it down on top of another strip, matching the stripes.  You can sort of see it in the photo above.

I folded the strip back...

Applied a small amount of fabric glue, and unfolded the strip once more, making sure that it lined back up again.  When the glue dried,

I opened it out again and took it to the machine...

And stitched, taking care to sew exactly in the folded crease.

So maybe the didn't come out absolutely perfect, but it worked well.

 All that was left was to stitch it to the quilt.

A whole lot of it...

And then hand stitch it down.  I like to do the corners first, and then the long sides.

Here is the finished quilt on my bed.  It isn't for my bed, but I have it there to see how it looks. 

This is a closeup of a finished corner.  Actually, it looks good, but I wish I'd used navy strips after all, because the stripe seems really busy to me.  But, I'm not going to redo it, and you don't notice the binding too much when it is on a bed anyway. 

Now I'm off to do more hand stitching.  Netflix is a good thing!

Aloha,
JoAnne

A Tale of Two Quilts?

Several years ago, (well, over 6 at least) when I lived in Alaska, I was in a Thimbleberries club.  Included with all the club block patterns, was this bonus.  The instructor/leader asked everyone to make her a block so she could have a quilt by which to remember us.  I made one, and it was fun, so I made nine more to make the quilt.  It turned out pretty nice.

It wasn't too special, though, so I folded up the top and put it in a basket for "whenever."

Last summer, when I was in Shipshewana, Indiana, I bought the templates to go with this Laundry Basket Quilts pattern that I already had.

I liked the pattern and wanted to try to make it.  The templates helped a whole lot.  Now, I wanted to make the quilt, but I didn't want to spend a fortune on all the batiks that were featured in the pattern, so I turned to my large stash of Thimbleberries fabrics, because they all go nicely together.  I didn't have to buy any fabric to make this quilt.  I altered it slightly by putting on a different outer border.  The pattern features a 4 inch or so border of one fabric.  I wanted it a bit bigger and I had a lot of left over strips, so I pieced a strip border.  This quilt top looked great!

I wanted to get it quilted, so I started rummaging through my stash for backing.  While doing so, I came across the scrap quilt from above and realized it would make a perfect back for this one!  My longarmer is a pretty good master at lining things up, so I figured it would come out great, and boy, did it! I got two quilts for the price of one!

Here is a detail shot of the front:

The challenge in piecing this was that it is essentially a LaMoyne star, and any quilter with experience knows that LaMoyne Stars mean Y seams!  This was no exception.  I felt when I finished that I should qualify for some sort of masters degree in Y seams.

In summary, this quilt is from a Laundry Basket Quilts pattern, made of Thimbleberries fabric, and consisting of massive amounts of Y seams, so I have named it:  "Why (Y) not fill a Laundry Basket with Thimbleberries."

Aloha,
JoAnne