finished a “flimsy”

linking up with Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday

 

The blocks/strings for this quilt were donated to our quilting group and I brought them home from the first meeting I attended, having been asked to “do something” with them.

They were all different sizes. Some were complete blocks, some were partial blocks and some were strings. The first thing I had to do was match the black fabric. You know, of course, that not all blacks are the same.

Last month I completed the blocks and squared them all to 5 3/4 inches. Deciding on the layout and sewing the blocks together was the easy part.

Then came the search for the perfect border fabric. At the group meeting two months ago I acquired a bag full of bright “children’s” fabric. The surfing fabric that forms the inner border was part of that acquisition.

When I sewed that border on, the whole quilt looked flat. I was tempted to rip the border off but I knew it would work if I could just find the right outer border. I brought these two fabrics home from the group’s store cupboard. In theory they should both work as they have many of the colours that are in the body of the quilt but – up close and personal with the quilt top – no way!

I thought yellow would do the trick so I scoured the cupboard, my stash and the local “Big Box Store” but bright yellow is either very popular or completely out of fashion – I couldn’t find any! On Tuesday this week, I bought this fabric in desperation.

It has white stars on it but from a distance it reads as yellow. My intention had been to put a thin border of the yellow around the surfing fabric then add one of the two blue fabrics shown above. Just as I was heading to the cutting counter, I spied this fabric and thought it might be useful.

I bought half a metre (20”).

On Wednesday DD and I auditioned the yellow fabric. To my surprise and horror, it didn’t work at all. Then, in desperation, I tried the black. You can see for yourself what a perfect match it was!

Back to the Big Box Store on Wednesday afternoon for another metre (40”). I attached the borders yesterday. I am yet to find the perfect backing fabric. I don’t have enough of the blues above, nor will the half metre of the black border work.

I want to get on to the quilting. It won’t be done on the quilting frame because DD and family are going away for three weeks and it takes two of us to work the frame properly. It will have to be done on my Janome machine with the walking foot as my FMQ is not good enough for a real quilt yet.

Any suggestions?