Putting it Together

After finishing the top (which I described here), I had to piece together a back to fit. I wanted it to be nice enough to use as the top side if they didn't want to have all the messages on display all the time. And I wanted it to also tie in with their wedding theme. So I pieced the words, Faith, Hope, Love. (Even though I didn't want to blog about this quilt until they had seen it, I did have a post about piecing the letters.) They are on a lighter olive fabric, and surrounded by a very large floral.

On the frame, last November. I chose to use a wool batt, because although I usually like the crinkly look you get with cotton batts, I thought it might make it harder to read the hand-written notes. I outlined the 3 white columns, adding a 'swoosh' through each patch to tack it down. 

There are echoed leaves in the negative space on the sides of the quilt, and echoed blossoms on the two inner columns. The wool batting really gave this some wonderful texture.

After completing the quilting, draped across the frame.

 

The completed back of the quilt. It was a little traumatic sending this to the happy couple. I sent it Priority Mail a week ago Tuesday, and it was supposed to arrive by Thursday. Following the tracking, it flew from Seattle to New York on Wednesday, but then got missent to Long Island. It came back to the city on Friday, but it was marked as delivered on Saturday and Emily didn't have it. After several days agonizing, it finally showed up on Tuesday. 

Linking to Finish it up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts, because it's really finally finished!

Sassy Star 2

And a final finished quilt for 2012. This makes 12 for the year, although there is still one I haven't put on the blog. This is the second of two designed and pieced after I was inspired by quilts shown on Jane Sassaman's blog in 2008 or 2009. With the publication of her latest book, I wanted to get these finally done. I waffled for some time on borders for this one. I considered many options and even bought fabric for a couple but then didn't like them. Ultimately, I decided it didn't really need borders.

This was quilted by loosely following some of the motifs in the star's diamonds. The background was quilted by outlining the medallions and doing echoing blossoms around each. 

Sassy Star I

Evenings hand-stitching bindings while watching TV are starting to pay off. This little LeMoyne Star quilt was started back in 2008, inspired by some quilts that Jane Sassaman was showing on her blog. With the publication of her book, Patchwork Sassaman Style, this summer, I thought it was about time to get this quilted and finished.

Linking to Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.

Tree Skirt

There's still time to finish up a few projects before Christmas, right? After unpacking, laundry, etc following Thanksgiving, I got this little tree skirt bound and done. I think it's cute; not sure if it's the right size.

I have 3 more things quilted, but needing to be bound. No, they're not Christmas presents, but I hate to leave them in this almost-done state. It would be nice to get them into Completed status before the end of the year. 

Boy Quilt

The neighbors with the new baby also have a first-grader, an adorable boy who is always cheerful and enthusiastic about what he's been up to. I thought he should have a quilt too, as a new big brother. I looked at several designs for using novelty fabrics, but came up with this very simplified version.

It uses 20 5 inch squares of novelty prints, with mock-sashing blocks of 2 inch Kona Stone, 1 inch blue and 2 inch Kona Stone. The alternate solid blocks and borders are also Kona Stone. I only came up with 10 prints that I thought worked, so each appears twice. The oldest fabric in the group had a selvage date from 1992! The designs are: Olympic Kids (children in different national uniforms with different sports equipment), raining cats and dogs, vintage guitars, world money, nautical flags, earth with a banner saying World Wide Web, Vancouver Olympic winter games, sailboats, Western Washington icons, and old US stamps. 

I quilted it with the Fern Ziggle design from one of the Pajama Quilter DVD's. It seemed too open in the large scale I used, so I echoed the inside. All in all, a quick and fun quilt to make!

Baby Boxes

I finished the binding on the quilts for my neighbors over the weekend, and gave them away at the beginning of this week. I think they were surprised and very pleased. So, pictures of the finished baby quilt.

This picture was taken before washing. I wanted to see if the quilting designs show up better before or after washing and drying the finished quilt.

Perhaps the crinkling from the washing process obscures some of the quilting design by adding more texture?  Anyway, I quilted spirals on the left side, loops on the box frames, a large meander in the box's print, and then echoed leaves on the right side. 

The back is a little softer in color than the front.

I found this print on sale when I was starting to plan this quilt. Had to include it, because the father is a reporter for a small local newspaper. 

Blue Ridge Mountains Done!

I finished quilting this in July, but with all the hot weather, the binding didn't get finished until recently. This quilt has been in progress for close to 5 years,which I was able to determine by finding previous blog posts about it here,  here and here.

The hammock turns out to be a good place for taking outdoor pictures of smaller quilts.

Close-up of the back to show quilting, which really doesn't show at all on the front. I used a Sue Patten-inspired design in the border, and something from Leah Day's site in the dark blue. I think it was called knotted spiral. In the light blues, I used white thread and flames with occasional spirals. Since nothing showed with the busy fabrics, it was all just about the texture.

Zigzag Done

The binding was actually finished a couple of weeks ago, but I needed to find and trim or bury all the dangling threads and then take pictures. It was just the right size to lay on the hammock for pictures. And once again a cloudy morning.

I pieced it following this tutorial. It's really just a simple 2-rail Rail Fence, pieced on the diagonal. You have to make sure to lay it all out first, and then keep the fabrics in order as you piece the diagonal rows. 

Quilting close-up. In the gray, I quilted a wishbone variation. I hadn't yet received Angela Walter's book, but I studied the quilting she had done for other peoples' books. In the various prints, there are just 3 wavy lines.  I figured it would hardly show anyway against the busy prints, but in retrospect, I think I would go with sets of parallel, straight lines. 

And the back. The bobbin threads barely show, but the texture is nice when the light is right. Can't tell very well in this photo, though.

Squares Done

Finished putting the binding on the Squares quilt, featuring Marcia Derse fabrics, although not exclusively. I always struggle with getting good pictures of larger quilts as I don't have space to really spread them out. But today is overcast but dry, ideal for outdoor pictures. I put an old sheet down under the quilt and snapped some shots in the back yard. My backyard has more weeds and moss than actual grass, but it's all green.

Basket Case Done

It seemed like it took almost as long to finish the binding on this as to quilt the whole thing. But it's done, and washed and dried to get the dog hair off and get the nice, soft crinkly texture. It should go to its new home this week. Measured after washing and drying, it's 59 x 67, a nice lap size. All the fabric, including the back and binding, came from my stash. Some of it, like the Kona Butter and the Martian fabric in the skull, is relatively recent, but the others were a lot older. The only thing I purchased new for this quilt was the quilting thread. I used King Tut Luxorious (a red/blue/purple variegated) for all the background quilting.

Close-up of the quilting in the skull. I used Nite-Lite yellow (a glow in the dark thread) for the patterned quilting around the outline of the skull, eyeholes, teeth, and a matching So Fine yellow for stippling in between those sections. The glow in the dark thread just has a soft glow to it, which gives a nice ghostly look in the dark. My camera couldn't see it at all though. (I tried to take a picture last night with all the lights off.)

Scrappy Trips

And it's finally done. It should probably be washed and dried flat or blocked, but I'm just going to use it as a nap quilt for now. The wool batting is wonderfully airy but warm, and gives the quilt extra volume or body.

Close up of the quilting. I did echoed leafy shapes, that shows up most clearly in the border. In the body of the quilt, with the multitude of busy fabrics, it mostly disappears but gives a lot of texture.

Something Finished

The last stitches were put in the binding about a week ago, and it still needs to be washed, but Batik Tracks is essentially done.

I can't quite get the whole quilt in a photo on the design wall. My design wall is something I rigged up from an old flannel sheet suspended from a curtain rod in the hallway. It works, but the only way to take a picture is to stand in the bathroom doorway. And if the dog starts prancing around and stirring up a breeze, blocks start falling off. The other thing I notice is that pictures taken here really emphasize the color differences in the blocks and minimize their similarities. See the picture on the bed for comparison.

Close-up showing the swirl and spiral quilting.

Batik Tracks on a bed. In natural light, the blocks blend together much better and the overall effect is of a turquoise quilt. This is how it looks in person.

And here's the back. I used 2 different Jinny Beyer blender prints, one just a couple of years old and the other from at least 20 years ago.