I've finished all the applique for my Pastor's Attic Quilt. The borders are sewn onto the body.
Pastor's Attic will be hand quilted. I've known how I wanted to quilt her even before I started the applique. However, she is going to need to be marked over the entire quilt and that is going to take awhile. My goal is to have her ready to go in the quilting frame by next fall. If you look closely at the above photo, you will notice that I've left the selvages on the borders. I like to do this so I don't need to zigzag the edge to keep them from raveling. I will cut the selvages off before sewing on the binding.
Here are pictures of the last 2 corners.
I finished appliqueing the first block November 7, 2015. You can read the post I wrote about it on my old Word Press blog. I made this quilt to prove to myself I could do it. As long as I own her, she'll never be used as a bed quilt, she's just for pretty.
The border of Star Dance will be the next applique project. I've started prepping the applique. Maybe next Sunday I'll something to show you.
The focus this week has been on adding the borders to Nearly Insane. The first narrow blue border measured 1" finished and the zigzag border is 3" finished. The outside border was cut at 5 1/2". She is 86" square.
It was very windy outside and I had trouble getting a good picture of the flimsy.
And then the wind really picked up.
And then, even windier!
So I gave up and laid the top on our bed and took a boring picture. Normally when I add an outside border, I cut the fabric the length of fabric but I couldn't with this fabric because it was directional.
First I had to find the repeat which was 6". I opened up the fabric and cut 6" strips across using this flower as my reference point. The pencil is pointing at the flower. Sorry the photo is blurry but this is a close up photo! And yes, this was a posed picture, I just noticed I have the ruler backwards.
I used a white Sewline pencil to mark the strips for my repeat seam.
I cut a 1/4" seam allowance, put the 2 pieces together and sewed them.
In this picture the seam looks obvious but if you stand back, you don't see the pieced strip.
I sewed the borders to the body, making sure the vine was on the end.
This is one of the mitered corners. You don't notice the miter because the vine was on both ends and it blends in. I pieced the first block for Nearly Insane on January 11, 2016. I kept track of the number of pieces in each block. The pieces in the blocks total 4687 and there are 564 pieces in the zigzag border for a total of 5251 pieces. I didn't figure how many pieces with the sashing included, maybe I will sometime but not today. * * * * Update * * * * I have been asked by several commentators if I am going to hand quilt Nearly Insane. The answer is, yes, of course I am going to hand quilt her. Nothing against quilting on machines but it would cost me a fortune to have Insane custom quilted the way I want her quilted. And I can't stand the thought of overall quilting on this quilt. It will take me some time to get her in the frame. Hopefully that will happen in another week. I had told you I would show you the other retreat projects later. I've finally got them photographed and here they are.
Over New Years weekend, I pieced a Regatta Quilt. This was through a sew-along-at-your-own-pace with Roseanne and Peg. I haven't quilted my Regatta yet. There were a lot of leftovers from Regatta. I wanted to piece those leftovers and then quilt them both at the same time. This is my version using those leftover fabrics. All that is left of the original jelly roll is 13 - 2-1/2" squares. I'm not sure when I will get Regatta and Leftovers quilted, they'll just have to wait their turn.
Last fall at the Jane Stickle Retreat, I made rail fence blocks with a jellyroll. I cut yardage for the red fabric. After I had sewn quite a few strips together, I remembered I had planned to cut the red into 1 1/2" strips not 2 1/2" strips. Oh well, I certainly wasn't going to take those strips apart so I sewed the rest of them that way.
I decided last week that I was going to concentrate on getting Spring Fever finished and I did!
I named this quilt Spring Fever but it was originally named Cabin Fever. Cabin Fever was one of the Five Fat Quarter Fun patterns from Amber and Amanda. I washed her to remove the blue markings which all came out. Here are close up photos of the quilting.
For the back I used this fabric with cute little forget-me-nots. You can't see the quilting but I really liked the fabric. Spring Fever details - She measures 56" x 71". I used a Hobbes 80/20 batting and hand quilted her using a variegated King Tut quilting thread. I will never again use King Tut for hand quilting, What a mess! I've never had such problems with knotting from any other quilting thread I've used. Karen from Quilts...etc. commented that she never has any problem with King Tut thread. I don't know what I'm doing differently than she does but I hated it! The next quilt I hand quilt will be quilted with YLI thread.
I did get two corners of border for the Pastor's Attic quilt appliqued.
The Pastor's Attic Quilt are finished!! One step closer to a final finish. Now I need to prep the corners for applique. If you look at the picture of the quilt in the above link, you'll see I changed the border. I don't like the zigzag and I don't like the corner stick flower either. The red circles I added for fun. Like most people interested in antique applique quilts, I monthly downloaded the patterns for the 1857 Quilt from Sentimental Stitches. And like the majority of you, I've not done anything with them. In my search for a design for the corners, I've decided use block 56 from the 1857 Quilt. I can't show you the pattern right now since they're copyrighted but hopefully next Sunday I'll have some applique to show you.
I did toy with the idea of not having any applique on the corners but they looked too bare compared to the rest of the quilt.
More quilting progress happened on Spring Fever. The two narrow borders are quilted and I'm ready to start the outside border.
The most exciting news is Nearly Insane is also close to being finished! I just need to find the perfect fabric for the outside border.
The main and most important project I worked on at the guild retreat was a border for Nearly Insane.
This is a zig.
This is a zag.
When you sew them together, you get a zigzag border. It took me two days to get these four borders pieced!
I'm hoping to get this border attached to the Nearly Insane body this month. Before I attach the zigzag border, I want to sew a narrow border on the edge of the center.
This post is going to be written in two parts. I'm writing the first part today, Wednesday evening, because tomorrow I'm off to my guild's annual quilt retreat. I'll finish the post when I return home Sunday afternoon.
I've quilted a lot this week and I was able to finish the top section of this row. All of the blocks are now quilted and the borders are remaining.
I took a close up of one of the blocks so you can see the quilting easier. This is the first time I've used a design like this on top of pieced block. This is going to happen more often.
I've rolled and you can see I've unattached the quilt top from the top leader and pinned it onto the batting/backing. Progress is happening! I so enjoy quilting on this quilt, she stitches so nicely.
Two leaves and the red circles need to be appliqued to finish this border, then one more to do.
I guess I really shouldn't say these borders will be finished when these flower vines are finished because . . . there is applique for the corners of the borders! I'm home from the retreat now, stuff is put away and I'm ready to show you a little of what I work on this weekend.
I took embroidery along for hand work but only embroidered a couple hours Friday evening. I embroidered another circle for the Bless My Garden Wall Quilt.
And I finished this little circle that I had started sometime but I don't remember when.
