Quilt 4: "It's All HAPPENING!" Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day is over. I enjoyed myself immensely and hope you enjoyed your day, too!

Of course there was never any hope of getting this Christmas quilt done before the big day, but that's OK. I'm still working on it, and just enjoying this special holiday project to the MAX!

Now that the center has been pieced together, all I have to do is add the border strips and we're there! Here we go - first two borders (narrow green band followed by a wide red band). Note that the red border has squares of the paisley print set in the center and on the corners.

And Hey! DONE!  Getting a photo of the top draped over the stairwell rail is, I guess, for me a tradition (below):

But the proof is seeing it on the bed (below).

I did alter the design slightly. I opted to keep the border at the top a little less wide. I didn't need it to be as wide as the bottom and sides.  Our bed has a latex mattress - quite thick - so I've had to make this quilt a "super-sized" queen - it's really almost a king size quilt, with the extra length added for the sides and bottom.

All set! Next: sandwich and pin!

Quilt 4: Assembling the "On Point" Center

Here, again, is the design:

 

I've got the pieces for the on-point lattice in the center of the quilt, and am starting to lay out the strips. Shown below are the corner piece (for the lower left), then the strtip of green and red lattice, then the next diagonal "row" and so on.




As you can see in the picture above, I've not cut triangles for the edge of the lattice - but instead just cut a square, and will sew the first border (a narrow strip of green) on top, and then will crop away the excess. Just seems easier than cutting itty bitty triangles and fooling with them.

Below is a closeup showing the square hanging over the edge a bit:

 

Zip, zip, zip and the central section is DONE! (photo of it laying on my bed below):

I have to be honest and tell you that although I thought assembling this section would be pretty simple, it actually wasn't. I kept messing up and sewing the wrong strips together. I'm afraid I used my seam ripper quite a bit on this one, and had to redo several bits. Was I rushing too much? No, just managed to get confused.

But the on-point center is done now (closeup below) and I'm really pleased with hot it's coming along.

Now to get busy and put the borders on. They're mostly just wide strips of the three different fabrics, so it probably won't take long.

Quilt 4: It only took 2 1/2 Years (Christmas Quilt)

Back in June of 2010, I found a nice Christmas print in the clearance rack at a favorite fabric shop. I grabbed it and, with help from quilting guru Pauline, found a couple of complimentary prints to go with it. I put up a post on this blog to share the design and my plans for a queen-size Christmas quilt.

Here's the design:

What happened to quilt 4? Well... uh... it just never happened. Truth is: I felt intimidated by the on-point design. I just wasn't ready.

But now? Now I'm feeling my quilting "muscles" and have decided to have a go. It'll make a nice Christmas project, now that I'm in the "holiday mood". I've cut out the on-point pieces: 

59 squares (the red/green/cream paisley print) (6.5 inches square)
140 green rectangles (2.5 x 6.5 inches)
58 red squares (2.5 inches square)
and the paisley triangles (needed for the corners/edges of the on-point section):

2 squares of paisley (5 1/8) cut in half to give me four triangles. (above) for the corners.


And

5 paisley squares (9 3/4 inches square) cut (as shown below) to produce twenty slightly larger triangles for the edges.

There needs to be red triangles for the edging, too... but hm... I think I'm going to try and "cheat" there - more about that later.

I'm ready to go! 

Quilt 14: Civil War Prints - DONE!

OH, my. How long ago was it that I started THIS quilt? A Loooooong time ago. My friend Julie wanted a quilt made with these civil war prints. She bought the fabric and I agreed to make the quilt, my labour being a special birthday gift to her. Now.. ahem... her birthday was actually in August (sheepish look from me) but Julie has been patient. And - at last... I'm finishing it! Here we go: I'm stitching together the binding strips:

And now I'm attaching the binding to the quilt top:

Cutting away the excess (I leave just under 1/2 inch to fold the binding over):

VOILA! 

DONE! 

Here's a photo of the completed project, with the back flipped at the bottom so you can see the backing fabric Julie selected. I think she chose very well, don't you?

And here's a detail photo of the corner, so you can see the border and binding together. The border picks up the tans from the inside blocks plus adds a splash of navy - very nice! And the binding is something of a "negative print" of the border.

It's been quite a while since I actually finished a project; I've been going through a bit of a dry spell - but hey! Here's one that's done and I'm feeling pretty good about it!

 I do have one other project in the quilting stage - so there's no danger of "quilt withdrawal syndrome", but I'll also start looking at the multitude of projects still in my UFO closet and select the next one to attack.