String Quilt

 I finished binding a quilt yesterday.  The top has been sitting in my closet for over 2 years.  I made it using blocks I pieced when I was doing the rainbow scrap challenge, where you are given a color for each month, and you make blocks using that color.  My plan was to bind it in black, but given that the backing is white, and I wanted to machine bind it, I chose to make the binding white too.  It is going to an adult, so I am not particularly worried about the binding getting dirty.  That's what washing machines are for.

This quilt in approximately 60"x70".  I am going to give it to my son's boyfriend.  They have been dating 6 or 7 years now, and he doesn't have a quilt yet.  I used to make it a rule of no quilts for boyfriends/girlfriends, but both of my children have been in long term relationships for years, and it seems petty not to give their significant others quilts.  Especially since I have an abundance of quilts!

Plaid-ish Bound

 My Plaid-ish quilt has been sitting for several weeks, waiting to be bound.  Yesterday I put the binding on, and I actually remembered to sew it to the back first, so I could finish it by machine.  

It is dark in my house, so I had a hard time getting a good picture, even with all the lights on.  The back of the quilt is a rainbow print of the periodic table.  Everyone I've shown it to seems to like the back better than the front.

I will put this quilt into our family drawing since I have no use for it now and no storage space for it.

Storm At Sea

 I finished my Storm At Sea top today.  This quilt was very labor intensive.  The specialty rulers I used (Studio 180's Square Squared and Diamond Rects) helped a lot, but there was a lot of piecing in this quilt top.  As soon as my backing gets here, I will send this off to be longarmed.  I had a hard time finding a place in my house big enough to lay it out.  We still have people here working on the bathroom remodel, so my usual floor space was off limits.

 

If I were crazy and decided to make another Storm At Sea quilt, I would choose a different fabric for the heart, maybe a gold or a dark red.  The pink looks very pepto bismal to me. It didn't bother me enough to redo it for this quilt, though. 

Storm at Sea Progress

 I have been working on Storm at Sea almost every day since I started it.  My design wall is not long enough for this quilt.  It will be 107x89, if I do the borders the way the pattern says.

I am very happy with the way it is going together.  My points aren't all perfect, but close enough for me.  I've done very little ripping and no pinning except for putting the rows together.

I am sitting here listening to them clearing the lot behind us. They are taking all of the trees down.  It must be going to be a big house!  Fortunately, our builder left a buffer of trees behind our house, so we will still have some privacy. When my kids were little, they used to hop our fence and play in that lot, which they called Squirrel Woods. It will take some getting use to having neighbors behind us, but I am glad the lot won't be a teenage hangout any more. In addition to the trees, they cleaned up a lot of beer bottles.  They also cut the fios cable, so we will have no internet for two days.  Thank goodness for hotspots!

Storm At Sea

 I finally decide on what I'm going to make for our friend's wedding:  a Storm At Sea quilt.  Other than the name of the quilt, I decided it would be a good wedding choice because I can piece a heart into it.  I am using Pam Goggans Smooth Sailing pattern and Deb Tucker's rulers Diamond Rects and Square Squared rulers. 

 I have always wanted to make a Storm At Sea quit, but the diamond within a rectangle units put me off.  There is really no way for me to make an accurate diamond within a rectangle unit with conventional piecing.  There were several options for paper piecing the units, but I decided the Diamond Rects ruler would give me the most accurate units with minimal waste.  I can't say that all of my units are exact, but they are close, and I am happy with them.

I have made over 130 of these diamond rects units so far.  They are not quick to do.  There is a lot of cutting and then a lot of making sure the points are matched up in the right place before sewing.  

If you are interested in the technique:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9hiTQ0v6Gk

Dawn's Early Light

 I got the top of Dawn's Early Light finished yesterday. It is a Bonnie Hunter pattern, so it is very scrappy.  The little friendship stars finish at 3".  This quilt has been almost six years in the making. I had the blocks finished and then played around with the setting for a while.  I ended up using sashing rather than just sewing the blocks to each other because there were so many seams, and I wanted to control some of the bulk.  After I got the center of the top together, I folded it up and let it sit for at least 2 years.  Yesterday I finally put borders on.  This quilt is 90" x90", and there is so much work in it, I might just keep it.

I didn't get a great picture of the quilt.  The day was cloudy, and

the place I use to photograph my quilts (the floor of my bedroom), has been partially taken over by the guys who are remodeling our master bath.  It is a big job which includes taking out the corner tub and removing a window.  They just started yesterday.

I think a darker blue border would have been better, but I wanted to use up what I had.  I will probably bind this one in red or navy.

In other quilt news, my brother in Atlanta won the drawing for Surrounded By Scraps.  I have started showing pictures of my quilts to my family when I have excess quilts.  If they are interested in the  quilt, they let me know, and their name goes in the hat.  This also lets me know which of my siblings would like another quilt.  If they don't win a quilt drawing, I plan to pick out a quilt from those I'm hoarding, and give it to them.

I don't want all my quilts to be kept here.  What if something happens and we have a fire or flood?  By dividing them up among my seven siblings (most of whom have 4 or 5 quilts), I feel like I'm keeping at least part of my quilts safe. I told my BIL to think of his house as my off-site quilt storage facility.  

Surrounded By Scraps Bound

 I just completed the binding on Charlotte Hawk's 2017 mystery, Surrounded by Scraps.  The classic name for this pattern is Burgoyne Surrounded.  The mystery was just the center of the quilt, which was very quick because there are no triangles.  When I got mine done, it seemed unfinished, and I didn't like it.  I put it away.  A couple of years later, I added the piano key border, and now I like it.  This may be the scrappiest quilt I have ever made. Just a few of the fabrics are repeated, not counting the background.

The back is also scrappy.

I used the last of one of my favorite wide backs.

The quilting was done by Denise Zapf of Quilting Mojo.

This is the last of the quilts I had ready to bind, and I am glad of it!