A finish. Kind of.

Well, I thought I'd posted about this little quilt quite a while ago.

A while ago as in, last October. When I thought I finished it.

This is the quilt I made for the Habitat Challenge in October 2011.

I was never happy with the quilting. That's obviously why it's been stuffed in the closet under a pile of fabric for over a year. My plan was to rip out the quilting and try it again. At our guild Sew In last Saturday, I mentioned this plan to a couple of friends and they thought I was crazy. They reminded me that someone out there would love this quilt, no matter how wonky the quilting is.

So, I pulled it out of the closet with the intention of simply adding a label and shipping it to New Jersey where it would be given to someone in need. To my surprise, I hadn't actually finished my quilt! Yes, it looked finished, but my binding was held on with a really long, loose running stitch.

Easy enough to fix.

It's now properly bound and labeled. And tomorrow it'll be headed back east. To a new home where someone will hopefully be warmed and comforted by it

It doesn't seem right.....

It's November 21st.

The day before Thanksgiving.

 The thermometer on my back porch says it's about 77*. 

(Accuweather says 68*)

And I'm steaming Christmas Puddings.

In a roaster oven.

On the bar.

In our backyard.

In my flip flops!

 

Doesn't seem right, but I'm definitely enjoying this lovely day!

Scrappy Stash Quilt-Along: Finished Rainbow Quilt

Wow, I wasn't sure I was going to make today's deadline with this quilt! Who knew you could baste, quilt, and bind a quilt in a day? Well, not technically a day. I basted and started the quilting last night.

This morning, someone was already trying to take posession of the quilt, before I'd even finished the quilting!

 My cat George. She's got that "What do you mean I have to move?" look to her.

 Ta da! A lovely Rainbow Quilt. (It's not really that wonky. Just the fence making it look that way!)

I was going to quilt it with straight lines following the diagonal of the blocks, but I really see the diagonal along the purple blocks when I looked at it. So, I did (kind of wonky) straight lines on each side of the block seams and in the middle of each block. I wish the stripey binding stood out a bit more. It's a great stripe from Prints Charming that I've had for a while.

 The back is pieced from some of the fabric I used for the binding and a cute print I had in my stash. I think it was originally curtain panels.

Here's a close up of the backing fabric and a peek at the binding.

This really was a stash buster for me. The only thing I bought was a little Kona White for the borders. Everything else, including the batting, was from my stash.
Oh, and I can actually put the lids on all my scrap bins now! Whoo hoo!

My little techie

I just realized that I haven't posted any Halloween pictures yet.

Nathan, being 10, is very into technology these days. He has quite a few techie gadgets of his own and "borrows" one of our smartphones or iPad once in a while.

So, I wasn't really surprised when he said he wanted to be an iPod for Halloween.

Not the he wanted an iPod, but that he wanted to be an iPod.

The idea was Nathan's. The making of the costume was very much a family effort.

I found instructions for making an iPod costume using a black tee shirt and iron on transfers to make the app icons, but that wasn't authentic enough for this kid. It had to really look like an iPod. So we included as much detail as we could.....real app icons copied and printed from the internet, a "home button" and a hot bar at the bottom.

We even managed to make an Apple for the back!

He was a huge hit where ever he went. Lots of people stopped him to "try an app" or comment on what a great costume it was. He stretched out the use of this costume by wearing it to the school carnival, trick or treating and during Red Ribbon week for superhero day. We added a black cape for the last one.

His superhero?

He was iPod Man, of course!

The power of Apple!

Seeing Stripes

When making quilt binding, I'm always amazed at how much binding is needed for what seems like a relatively small quilt.

For instance, my Scrappy Stash Quilt-Along quilt.....

I've worked on it a little more now and it measures about 53" by 61". Doesn't sound so big.

Until you start figuring out how much binding to make.......

 (53 + 61) x 2 + a little extra = WHAT??????

That means I need to make about 20 feet of quilt binding. 

Ugh!

Cut...
Stitch...
Press...
Press again...

Some time later.....

I now have approximately 24 feet of pretty, stripey quilt binding.
Phew!

Time to figure out the backing and get this baby put together.