Saturday, April 27, 2013

Slide Show done!

Another UFO bites the dust! This was a class sample for a class last year and has been hanging on the wall. I love this quilt and thought it was a good time to get it down and quilted.


Slide Show

Back in the day that I was hoarding fabric, I hated using quilt shop quality fabric for the backing, opting instead for lesser expensive fabric from JoAnn's or something. I didn't like using up all the leftover fabric thinking it could go into another quilt! Well, a friend told me that she would rather use all the fabric leftover on the back so she could buy all new for her next quilts. Hmmm, good idea!  So I have been trying, where possible to incorporate the leftover fabric into the backings.

I looked high and low for the leftover scraps on this quilt, no where to be found.  Surely I had to have something leftover. I finally gave up and used the 1/2 yard that I could find and put back into stash and figured out the best way to use all of it, mixed with Kona Snow.
Slide Show back

The pattern is Slide Show from Terry Atkinson of Atkinson Designs.  Great instructions, as usual. Terry's patterns are among my favorite patterns for her simple, clear patterns and so easy to understand. And NO mistakes. A big pet peeve of mine. 

The fabric was from the OZ by Sanae for Moda Fabrics.  Unfortunately it's no longer available as my hubby got me a FQ bundle a few years ago. It didn't come with any yardage and it took a bit of digging to find any yardage to match for borders.  Note to self: either use the fabric quickly OR get yardage with bundles! 


I love this quilt, although a bit tedious at times. A great one to do while among friends! You can gab and sew and you'll get done before you know it.


Oh, and remember that I couldn't find any scraps leftover from this project? Guess what I found, oh...about 30 minutes AFTER I finished the last of the binding! Go figure!


Now, what to do with all this?

Happy quilting!

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Pink Pinwheels

I'm still going strong on finishing up my old UFO's.  I just run out of time to get them posted here!  The trouble is that I am taking most of my photos with my iPhone, and they take HUGE pictures (file size) and I have to import them into another place to resize them to make them work on the web, or you would be half the day downloading them. Well, maybe not half the day, but more than you would like!

So, here is Pink Pinwheels. I taught this as a class and we used the QuiltSmart fusibles (this one was called Black Eyed Susans--but my pink made them look more like pinwheels) to make the pinwheels. Awesome way to do this block.  But I set  it aside..ahem...4 years ago!! Because I thought I would want to do a special border on it and couldn't decide. So into the thinking bin it went and left it there.


Pink Pinwheel top

So, I sketched out a border design that I was sure would be awesome. Made the paper pieced patterns to make it easy on myself. 

Border design sketch and pp pattern

Made the first piece of the border (the bottom would have been a mirror image) and 
DID. NOT. LIKE. IT. 
I just love the thought of it, but it was not working for me on this quilt. Sheesh, back to square one. I hauled out all sorts of fabrics. Pinks, blacks, white on black, black on white and the only one that fit was a pink one that had flowers that sort of looked like the pinwheels.  

Pink Pinwheel Border trial

I tried adding a small little border in between the top and bigger border. Nope. Didn't work either. So after all that, I ended up with a plain border out of one fabric! And it waited 4 years! Yowsa! I need to get better on that one! LOL
Pink Pinwheels

Pink Pinwheel Back

I lucked out and had a piece of fabric large enough for the back. All that figuring on the front wore my brain out for the week and I relished the thought of doing a plain back. I know, not my style. 

Back to quilting....