finished flimsy

I had hoped to have my Earth and Sky quilt completely finished for the “Airing” last weekend but it was not to be.

On Monday I added the inner border to the flimsy. It’s in “sand” coloured homespun so there’s nothing really to show.

I had just half a metre of the fabric I chose for the outer border. I thought it would be enough. I measured, checked, measured again. I calculated. I measured again – half a metre didn’t seem like much but I thought I’d get away with it.

I cut 4.25” strips – I didn’t have enough for 4.5 which would have been my original choice but 4.25 was enough. I attached the top and bottom border. I pinned the side border…
…and it was two inches short!

How could this be? I has measured and calculated and measured again before I cut.

But, of course, I had measure the width and length of the flimsy as it was (that is, including inner border). I didn’t calculate the extra 4” of length that the top and bottom outer borders added!

You know, I think cornerstone blocks were invented for just such a reason!

So it was time to go back to the group’s stash to find the right fabric for the job.

I cut the cornerstones and added one to each end of the border.

Then I realised that I needed to take off the excess border fabric so the cornerstone would fall in exactly the right place!

Things are often not as easy as they first appear but at last ….

…the Earth and Sky flimsy is done!

Of course, every flimsy needs a backing before it can become a quilt.

The fabric I have chosen is striped and, naturally, isn’t wide enough. I don’t want to match stripes so I had lunch and thought about how to widen that fabric with a panel.

This is what I came up with.

I know the photo looks out of focus but it isn’t; it’s just the way the camera captures those stripes.

They really look like this:

The thin blue stripe going up both sides of the centre panel is a blue on blue random line check.

On Monday, before class, I will take advantage of the big table in the classroom to get this quilt basted!

My Saturday was swallowed up in cleaning as well as getting a quote from a painter and showing a property manager through DD’s former home. Sunday will involve church, a fellowship lunch and probably more cleaning in the afternoon.

How’s your weekend shaping up?

a last minute finish

After all the trauma of remodelling my quilt (and getting it wrong), it is finally finished.

I wanted to have it finished when I hosted “Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday” two weeks ago, but family circumstances and ill health (an upper respiratory tract infection)  got in the way.

I attached the binding and sewed it down on Wednesday. It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would – I allowed six hours for the hand-stitching, it took four and a half!

So, may I present Scrappy Strings, which measures 57” x 68” (the size our group aims for is around 56” x 64” so I’m not too far out!)-- a last minute finish because it was done on Wednesday for submission to the Airing of the Quilts this weekend, the quilts were needed at the museum by Thursday.

Taking photos in direct sunlight is not really good; the breeze shifts the quilt and creates shadows as well as washing out the colour. But no one was home so I had to peg it to my washing line and, although I’ve made some adjustments in the editing process, it’s still not a great photo!

Here’s a close up of my choice of binding – I was going to use some more of the backing fabric but I thought the quilt needed something bright to lift it. If you look closely, you’ll see that this fabric is also in two of the quilt blocks.

In these two photos you can see my quilting: in the ditch around the sashing and then a simple horizontal and vertical line through each block. Not quilting through the sashing meant dozens of ends to sew in! (Hey look, there’s the binding fabric in that block! LOL)

And now my favourite view – I just love the back!

Inserting a panel to make the backing fabric wider has been a signature on quite a few of my quilts!
Linking up with Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday over at Quilt Matters.

"Dotty Bright" has a back

In my post of Friday 28th April, I showed you this finished top.

Well, Dotty now has a backing.

The panel down the quilt back was made with the same fabric in different colour ways:

And when I’ve finished playing with my Scrappy Log Cabin blocks, I plan on basting and quilting Dotty!