As I mentioned in my previous post, I took Sunday off the computer. I mostly vegged—and then went to see a friend where we sat 6’ apart on her front porch and drank wine slushees I’d made in my ice cream maker—very tasty.
Monday, however, I had three goals: Take Auggie for a walk on the canal, go in for my first hair appointment since early February, and finish the two jelly roll quilts that have been languishing in my sewing room for far too long. Done and dusted on all three of them (particularly happy about the hair appointment).
So, you may remember these from previous posts. I did two quick jelly roll race quilts on year at Christmas just to use up a couple of my many jelly rolls. A few months later I got them to a longarm quilter. A few weeks later, I picked them up. And then they sat waiting for me to get their binding on them. And waiting. And waiting.
Finally, today, I did both bindings entirely by machine. The rose quilt, I was able to use the leftover backing fabric the longarmer had cut off and sent back to me for the binding. Loved having my 2 1/2” strip die cut as they were both length of fabric, so I was easily able to fold them up and slice them into appropriate binding strips.
I didn’t add a border to this one partly because I couldn’t find a good option from my stash and partly because I didn’t really feel like it needed it. Although, candidly, it was mostly because I didn’t have a good option in my stash and didn’t feel like taking the time to shop for something.
The longarmer did a nice all-over floral/leafy design that blends in but once I wash it will make it a nice antiquey-crinkly quilt.
The third photo shows my corners. My corners worked well on both of these quilts because I used a very scant 1/4” seam sewing the bindings on the back so I had plenty of fabric to work with on the front to miter things. I did end up trimming the corners, which I don’t always like to do because having the corner intact helps make a cleaner miter, but sometimes it’s just a little too big.
The decorative stitch I used is supposed to be a row of tulips. Somehow my machine wasn’t closing the bottom of the flower so they look more like bear claws. Oh well.
For the autumn quilt, I had to find fabric in my stash that worked for a binding. I auditioned a few and had nothing that was exactly right, but found a “close enough.” I tried some darker ones but they just made the quilt feel sad. I decided to mirror the light of the inner border and that worked much better, although I didn’t have enough left of the same light I had used in the inner border.
Have you ever had one of those fabrics that you just keep using and using and still seem to have so stinkin’ much of it left? The fabric I finally ended up using is one I’ve been using bits and pieces of for a long time. I believe it’s one I inherited from my mother. It definitely feels like it’s been prewashed and I’m not normally a prewasher (I prefer to leave the stiffness in while I’m cutting and wash later). I did, however, prewash everything I took from my mother’s stash as hers was in her basement and she hadn’t been able to use it in awhile before she passed, so much of it was a bit musty. A little baking soda and vinegar in the washing machine and it was back to normal.
In any case, every time I use this fabric I think, “Great! I can finally use it up!” But every time I still have a lot left. Well, no, This time I have about a third of a yard, I think. I’ll tossed it on my scrap pile, though, and will cut it into usable shapes using my AccuQuilt. (That’s another project for a Staycation Day later in the week.)
This decorative stitch is little bird tracks alternating sides of a meander. It worked perfectly for this.
While I was doing these bindings, I was listening to the audio version of the original book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with Anne Hathaway reading. She does a fantastic job—love it and highly recommend it! It made all that time babysitting my machine while it worked away at the decorative stitches pass relatively quickly.
Boy, it feels good to get these two quilts finally done and out of the bag on my sewing room floor where they’d gotten stacked. It’s nice to see that space clean again, too.
On to my next UFO…