43.4 Sukey’s Reverse Quilt Top Completed!

After coming back from a much needed vacation, I set up to finish the quilt top for the Sukey’s Reverse quilt for the guild. Last post, I was waiting for some blocks, and with special guidance, was able to ask for last minute help getting the blocks done and to me in the deadline I set for myself.

So, just before leaving on vacation, I was secure in knowing I had the blocks in my possession, and the weekend I got back, was able to “vacation de-stress” and make my “at home” quilting retreat to work on the final borders and layout and quilt top for the Sukey’s Reverse quilt.

First, I made some of what I called, “magic sashing”. 

The very edges of the quilt, I made a 1.5″ strip with mostly white, but with “cornerstones” on each side of 1.5 by 1.5 so that the sashing is the same size as the final unfinished quilt block: 12.5″ Pieces added were 10.5 X 1.5

This finished out the larger block design on the outside edge.

Another guild member made several of these “inset border” blocks, just the same small block pieces that were in the rest of the quilt. I tested out the “seminole piecing” technique of surrounding these blocks by triangles cut by a quarter square triangle method.

These borders were fun and it’s always fun to “fudge” the numbers of each color needed for the side of the quilt. The quilt is based in blues, so the swirly blue is the main color in the border. But the quilt is also based in some other cool colors, and it was fun to put them into the quilt in addition.

By surrounding the block by the same color as the white (one of the colors of the four patch) the two colored pieces appear to “float” in the quilt. Since I was doing the seminole piecing, I decided one side of the triangles would be the same background, and the other side would be colored. This also makes the pieces appear to float in the middle of the border without being too wild or hard to do.

By the end of the weekend I came back, I had the whole top together and pinned to my design wall, and all the pieced borders of the quilt done. Notice how the center fabric was one fabric I had in my stash that leans purple, and somewhere in the middle on each side, is one or two fabrics that lean blue green, but the rest are blue.

The following weekend, or maybe it was the one after, I was able to attend a sewing day and get a “stay solid border” in between on the edge of the quilt.

I had electric quilt calculated the number of blocks needed for the quilt as I had made, and then got a rough idea of the full size of the inner border of the quilt.

I was originally going to make the dark border a little narrower, but tried to “size up” a little bit to try to match the pieces on the outside.

I was close. So very close. Different adjustments might have had to be made as necessary.

Turns out each pieced border was 0.25″ too long. Trimming it up, I now have added my quilt borders shown above to the edge of the quilt.

The edge of each of the side borders is also the same background color as the rest of the background. This made it really easy to be able to trim up my slightly too long pieced borders without sacrificing the design. Also lucky me that after sewing was only 0.25″ off!

I was going to add one more dark border (hard to see in the picture above, but dark blue/blue-purple is the inside border).

This quilt is measuring 103.25 by 90.25. and this part is done up to here. I am hoping to turn it over to the quilter to have it done in the late winter/early spring for the 2019 fundraising.

Lots of work, a few “rouge blocks”, lots of cajoling or reminders of getting the blocks back, and lots more organization than I really wanted to do.

At the end, I did push my guild members to get the blocks done. But contrastingly, I did push myself to get the rest of the quilt done also. Most large chunks of spare time on the weekends so far in the last month and a half have been doing something more on my part of this quilt.

I was pretty exhausted this year doing all this guild work for 2018. Doing a large part of putting together the guild show and putting this together also, not a great idea to do both around the same time frame. Maybe if there was only one or the other, it would have been a little more manageable.

A few personal items in my life early in the year, and extra hobbies this year have pushed everything so squished for 2018.

But even with all the issues, prodding, pattern writing stress, I am happy with the quilt as it is. I find it funny that my extremely scrappy blocks made first almost look out of place. But not. Not really. So many “quilt philosophies” here. I love group quilts and seeing everyone’s creativity!!!!

I haven’t quite finished the updated instructions on the borders. It’s been a mish-mash of pictures and ideas so far which I haven’t edited down to a complete item. And it turns out that the borders fit better than I originally planned as they were actually cut.

I am going to miss having Sukey’s Reverse quilt in the house! I will need to do a major amount of donations to be able to get the quilt back! Or I could make a second one. A year from now the quilt will be drawn for. A large year and fun year of this quilt in the making.

I am also going to be happy moving on to something else for a while!!!

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43.2 Waiting game for last of the opportunity quilt blocks

Racing back to the opportunity quilt my guild is putting on, I put down in a post a lot of feelings I have had about working on the quilt. Currently (at the moment of writing, not the moment of posting) waiting on 7 blocks to show up in my hands to finish the center of the quilt top we are working on. I have decided (at the moment of writing) to have faith that the blocks others have signed up to do are done. I designed the quilt, ended up making the deadline for the blocks middle of September, and now am in a waiting game for the last blocks to show up in my hands to be able to put the top together with the extended deadline of next weekend.

I am re-releasing my thoughts here about working on the quilt top. A lot of it I feel are current blocks I am trying to work through on my own about my own failings, and what types of things I am personally working through that have come up with the working on this quilt. Most are how I feel about myself. Of note: I got into a huge fight with one of my friends while working on this quilt and with the guild this year. Because of my feelings towards myself, and my attitudes and my expectations. I know I do show some judgement of others below. Hopefully it doesn’t come off as too strong to anyone but myself. Comments shared word for word elsewhere are in italics.

Feel free to skip this post if you aren’t interested in quilting with self reflection.

The quilt is called Sukey’s Reverse, and it is re-designed from a generic block called Sukey’s choice from a block I got somewhere in some calendar or post. To my knowledge, this block doesn’t exist out there yet to any kind of popularity.

Thoughts on my adventures of “ being in charge of the group opportunity quilt”. Have been spending the extra time this weekend on getting parts made for the borders of the group quilt to be ready for when all the blocks magically show up in the next week. Also prepared to angel yet another two blocks in case I don’t get them by Friday. As in, one extra block is done and will go in my own quilt if they all come back, completed as promised, and the other block all the dark rectangular and square pieces are together. I have already signed up and made 4 blocks for this quilt already, and started looking at options for the “too small” blocks, of which I think I have found 2. No one seemed interested in helping with the pieced borders, which is fine, not everyone’s taste, but it is good to get started on some of the pieces already. I also have some “magic sashing” and cornerstones to do to finish out the design just before the rest of the pieced borders. I have yet to sit down and actually measure any one of these blocks to the “correct size”, but along the wall the other day, no one block stood out as being extra big either.

I think some of my stress is not physically being able to be present at the October meeting, and wanting the top done by the last meeting of this year. (In November) I have had fun with it, in the design, but not necessarily in the constant going back and picking up blocks part of this quilt. I think a lot of it is because if I don’t work “really hard” at being organized, I am forgetful enough that I do get off track more than I should. It has been a testament of faith trying to wait for people to make them. Here is hoping that the faith is not misplaced. I am happy enough with the blocks I have that I can shorten up the quilt now if I would absolutely need to in a pinch. Nonetheless, I still have angel blocks in the wings. I am extremely grateful for the ladies who not only promised to fill the last remaining spots that no one else seemed anxious to fill, but for getting them done and to me as well already. Now is a sitting and waiting game for the rest of the blocks by the deadline of next Friday.

This year, I have completely overextended myself with my activities with the guild, taking on this, taking on the organization and entry of the quilts for the local show. It has felt like this year, my extra time has not been mine. With a very small exception of a month or two at most. I realize a lot of this is my own fault, my own complications, my own overexplanations that no one will listen to, my own constant need to ‘oversacrifice’ to prove to others that I am worthy or worth any attention. I have been known for getting attention for my quilts and my quilting, and my designs, and so I have leaned on that hard to “validate my self worth”.

(Some of this over-sacrifice has even lead to my insistence that I was eventually going to “figure out the borders” later. Even though I had a design that had good borders that I liked. But no time did I really ever give everyone the “here’s how to make the borders” part of the quilt, and no time except for the first pass around of the sign up list in March did I ever again ask for people’s help doing the borders) Which means I do have another thing to do now. I am currently ‘reworking’ part of the  borders of this quilt.

I know that I don’t do a lot of things for other people, and see these acts of service as “helping the greater good”. A lot of quilters that I know make quilts for others as a regular part of their quilting lives, and I can’t get a chance to finish anything I have started. But some of that is because of this. I do tend to keep the smaller quilts I make. There is also lingering guilt that I never got a quilt made for her before she passed on, and that my indecision in things never gets anything completely made unless I have a deadline, or unless other people are counting on me.

(I wrote once fully, and then rewrote smaller two separate versions of the pattern for this quilt).

(I was very excited to get the instructions down to one page, but yes, I did just say we’re going to do the borders later in the instructions, and then put a picture of the original block there). Being asked now by one of the people who have been done and wanting to help as of now).

Then I start thinking about how the whole opportunity quilt thing works.

I wonder how easy it will be to be sitting selling tickets for this quilt next year at the large quilt show, and how I will handle any off-hand remark from others about not liking the quilt after putting this much work and effort towards it. And I wonder how I will feel when it leaves the guild’s hands completely at the end of the year next November. Oh, am I supposed to be the one who organizes people to sit with this at other guild’s shows to show it off to sell tickets to it? I hardly want to think about adding that type of task to my list as well next year. I hate that type of task, and am slightly hoping that once this quilt top is made and at the quilter’s it becomes someone else’s issue to deal with. I suppose I can ask, but there is a nagging feeling that no one else will want to do that part either, and it will also fall to me, but we will see.

(picture below me sitting at the last opportunity quilt at the event described above)

Something about quilting that is somewhat unique is the sheer amount of planning, preparation, doing of tasks to get a piece like this done. As with any art, it has gone through many hopes and dreams, many aspirations, many variations and explanations. A lot of thought goes into this. Including the “oh, I haven’t finished my part in this”, and the “why hasn’t everyone even signed up to do this” and now the ecstatic joy to see the matching fabrics contrasting the ‘very, very scrappy’ fabrics, the possibilities, and even the condescending comments about how I am over explaining too much again in effort to be helpful, but also sting slightly. Which is nothing new to hear, but still hard to hear as well. In addition to the blow up over a promise that didn’t get fulfilled in the time frame as well. In these hopes and dreams and feelings, are each stitch, all these promises of getting things done, of helping others, of the greater good, and of “getting this thing off my plate already so I can get going working on something else for once” too.

Just a quilt, huh? Just a blanket? Something pretty on the wall. Or on the bed, or on the couch, or hopefully not, in the dog bed. I just hope the person who draws the # for it has an appreciation of it. I was glad to be a part of this quilt, and hope someone else can carry the “weight” of it next year!

(Not so sure I will abstain from doing designing and collecting of blocks the following year. I have been overwhelmed for the timing of both the quilt show and the opportunity quilt being the same, similar time frame, in 2018. I am sincere in hoping others will be able to manage the distribution and sale of this quilt I am working on now for the time of 2019. Timing of the next opportunity quilt will also fall on the same year as the local show, 2020, of which, I still hope to be a major part of that project.) Not sure now how I feel about that right now.

As someone said, I shouldn’t have to do it alone. I don’t know why I always struggle to ask for specific help. Somehow, it’s a part of who I am – or so I think. If I work on the skill of figuring out what specific help to ask for, and being specific on what is needed, then maybe I will be able to ask and receive the help. But, sometimes, the anxious part of my brain is worried that things will fall through and will be on my shoulders again at the end anyway. In all honesty. If I can figure out how to quiet that part, or work with it, instead of against it, things might feel more peaceful.

I have been surprised at my feelings of waiting for blocks the last week and a half. I have said to myself and at least one other, “I have to have faith they will arrive.”

42.2 Making Lanyards for the Guild Show

We decided to change the way we were doing our charity project for our upcoming guild show in 2018. We used to make a quilt (or other) and put it up for silent auction to be given to the highest bidder at the end of the show. Instead we are going to make things to “buy it now” – to borrow a phrase from ebay.

Somehow, this flipped a switch in my brain to say – make boutique like items.

Also my old lanyard was starting to look gunky after several years of use, and I decided to make myself some lanyards, at least one for me, and the rest I can make for the guild for the charity portion of the show.

In the meantime, last June, at the Kansas City show, I saw the vendor Project Lydia. I had seen them before.

They are a group of ladies who make colored beads out of very thin strips (triangles) of magazine paper, and then string them into bracelets and necklaces.

From their website:

Project Lydia is an economic development project that lifts women out of the worst of poverty, restores purpose, hope, and dignity. All our paper beaded necklaces, bracelets and jewelry are made out of recycled material.

And I have put my necklace I purchased from them as my own lanyard for the time being. Sorry for the poor quality picture.

I’ll take you through how I am making these lanyards if you decide to make one of your own. I like the Project Lydia piece, but as it is beads and I use this daily, I have had a poor experience where I had a handmade beaded necklace break in the middle of the hallway when using my badge.

Next to the beaded lanyard is a strip. I start my strips for my new lanyards as 2″.

I then fold towards the middle twice. Actually one fold in the middle.

Open the strip up again, and refold to the new middle line that is just pressed in.

I then take some sort of stabilizer. I already had this with the lines on it for a project long ago abandoned.

I cut just under an inch, about 1/8 inch less than an inch, so that would make it 7/8″.

And I slip it into the middle of the opened up strip, trim it up.

I don’t honestly know exactly how necessary it is for the stabilizer. I have chosen batik fabrics for my lanyards as a good chance for the ends not to unravel.

The next part of this, I fold everything back up, press it again and sew it down. Don’t worry, I forgot to take a picture of this part so I decided to slip it under the presser foot so you could see.

And most of my lanyards are at this stage right now!

The next part of this is the tricky bit that gets rid of the cut edges from being exposed.

I unloosen some of the end stitches on each side, and open up the lanyard about half an inch. I decided to reach in with my scissors and cut just a small wedge on ONLY the inside piece.

Repeat on the other side.

I then decided to notch the front folds just a little bit to help reduce the bulk here.

Then, we turn inside out the very end tip, pushing from the back side, and then using fingers to press this all down. A spritz of water helps with this process. If you see below, there is a fold towards the inside of the very little section (maybe a fourth of an inch) of the end piece.

Definitely fiddle with this to get it flat and then sew down the edges.

How they go with the lanyard pieces.

The reason I start with 2 inch strip is that my lanyards have about a 3/4″ flat space. I purchased them on Etsy about 5 or 6 years ago. This size of strip lays flat exactly with this size of lanyard piece.

For the folding of the lanyard, I chose the best looking side to go through the lanyard piece.

Then next to the back side of the lanyard – OUTSIDE the lanyard, I place the other side, making sure the lanyard is flat all the way through the fabric portion. This is folded back toward the main part of the fabric.

The first piece is now folded over to match the previously folded piece.

Be sure to give yourself a large enough “tail” here. You want to be able to have enough space for your presser foot to be able to reach on both pieces of fabric and also NOT hit the metal portion of the lanyard.

Sew many times back and forth as this is going to have a lot of strength on it. Make sure you sew or correct the last part of the tail that was previously un-stitched by one of the previous steps. For the one in my tutorial, I made the full length of the lanyard a “little bit longer” than I normally like.

Here’s the end stitching.

This shows how it looks from the side.

I should have cut this down a little more. This was done at width of fabric from the original piece, so it started as a 40-42″piece. If I had wanted a shorter one, I would have cut it before folding in the ends. I can work with this long of lanyard just fine. I just hope someone else will like this length too.

Since most of the rest of my lanyards haven’t turned in the sides, I can rectify this for the future pieces. I think we need to get this to the proper length, also taking into account that there will be about 3-4 inches taken up by the bottom section folded over.

40.2 Binding, Binding … Bound

Forgive my lateness in this post. I started writing a month ago and didn’t get any pictures transferred over until the July 31st weekend. I thought I had set this up to publish already, but now I see it’s still a draft. Many things have happened, not many of them actually quilting related however, but there is a huge post waiting to be written about my experiences with my local guild! This post is not it (yet). And now a massive, fun, quilt trip to write about. Any event, here is quilt “news” from me frome early July.

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My quilts are finally “going, going … gone” from their Work in progress status!

Thanks to my days at the retreat center, I finished the birds of the air quilt blocks, sent 40 off for the swap, keeping 8. I will get back 39 of the blocks since one is a “donation” block for Frances who has written a quilting book called “Birds in the Air.” I did get back 39 blocks, one being a donation block for Frances, which she has since received, but there were like 35 or so swappers (I forget how many) and so some of my blocks are done by the same quilter. I may add more blocks to what I have done already. This was easy block and a very fun swap!

The local quilt show on pushed me to get some finishes beforehand. I had 7 quilts before the quilt retreat at the Creative Place without binding on them, in addition to 2 very mini hot-pad sized quilts. Most were trimmed down prior to the retreat, but a few were not.

I also quilted & stitched down my challenge quilt for the guild show.

I didn’t mind free motion on the quilt with everyone in the room with me. It was a nice topic of conversation, and several people commented on how they liked how unusual the quilt was. And boy it’s artsy. I personally don’t like the frayed edges on the solids. But I don’t do much raw edge applique. My other attempts at raw edge over needle turn are my Don’t Panic Quilt done in batiks (higher thread count), or a few other quilts where I had satin stitching on the edge. I think it may have been exacerbated by the fact these are “lower thread count” since they’re solids.

Anywhoo, the birds in the air done, and the quilting on the challenge quilt done, means that duh,duh,duh, duhhhhh – binding was left on several, several quilts. Not large ones, thank goodness, but I do bindings a special way, and usually finish by hand. Luckily the focus provided at a quilting retreat leads to just that. I could get the fronts sewed down in the early morning before most people are awake, and then handsew later on, when everything is put away to pack up to leave.

And I just loved seeing all these little lovelies. Together was a blast!

Did I say little? 🙂

This is pre join on one quilt that ended up going for charity quilt.

It has a life and a story that I haven’t told, but even so, it went out to the charity quilts for something colorful for our guild show. It was a hard decision, but I think the right one to let this mini,mini quilt go.

Did you realize how many of my quilts have the “hidden underneath”/kicker/flange binding on them? A LOT! And I love it since it gives off the extra little something needed to color frame the quilt.

Like this one in yellow. This block was given as a paper piece practice from my guild for a name tag. I put the block into use by multiplying it (the original block was just one square) last summer I was going through bright scraps, and my only criteria was “make it bright and saturated in color” for chosing color. And small pieces are a plus here.

Sadly enough, I donated this one too. I love this little guy, and hope it brightens up someone’s day just a little bit!

I don’t think I individuallized the other bindings I was working on, but here’s the quilts ‘en mass’.

Ok out of the 4 quilts you see here, 4 quilts have the kicker/flange on them. Clockwise from the top left, flange in: true deep blue (not turquoise), dark purple, dark coral, and bright pink.

And this quilt was finished quilting (except for the very corners) a few years ago and just needed corners and binding. The binding was set aside special years ago. This one is a decent sized bigger than my other quilts, but even this is only like 3 feet on each side. I am sure I talked somewhere about my card trick quilt. No flange appropriate for the card trick quilt. But I thought about it. Briefly.

No more individual ones at all. Luckily, I can spread out when most are still asleep. All these yummy quilts to bind. Mmmmm.

Like a multilayered hero quilt sandwich with all the toppings available, all these stack up quite nicely in a small quilt stack! With only binding showing on most of them!

I am thinking about it, and a couple of choices I would have changed the “outer binding” to be a little less wild if it wasn’t for the kicker to ground the quilt and the binding together. Like the yellow calms down the crazy purple/orange binding on the bright quilt, and the tie-dye nostalgia print has a dark purple to ground the binding in with the quilt and gives it just the right movement.

Now if only I could be making these quilts bigger on the scale of 1:4 or so then maybe others would take these little quilts seriously.

Or not, they’re fun quilts. I got the quilt made out of “purina” leftover blocks in this stack. Purina, like the logo of red & white checkerboard. For the dog food etc. I can’t ever not call the quilt that now. Quilt on the left below. 

40.0 Guild Challenge Quilt from Coloring book inspiration

Oy!

I took a few months off quilting to reset. Something about taking all my closet out, moving my ironing board and design wall, only having limited time to do outside tasks before blazing hot temps take hold – where we are now! – and family emergencies during another month, offset me from quilting until getting this challenge quilt ready for the June local guild meeting.

I’ve been a guild member since 2009, and this is the first “guild challenge quilt” I have participated in that we have had of this kind.

Ok, so we were given a challenge fabric and told, keep it small (about 2 feet), add one off white solid, add one other solid, and the rest is up to us.

So I purchased some variations of solid fabrics.

I had a thought about recreating either a fabric design, or a notebook cover, or a coloring book I picked up a while ago.

Between this and a frequently added Pintrest board of gradient colors, I decided to try to recreate the front design.

I drew a quick sketch, then one morning, I sat down with some rulers and circles, and drew out and then colored a design based off this colored pencil design. And proceeded to color it in.

I drew the design actually on the heat and bond paper that gave me a “real life” feel of the size of each piece I was adding to the quilt design.

This design turned out very “arty” for my taste. I think I teased a portion of this somewhere else.

I used the gradients of having several different colors of teal as the focus, and the little accent pieces of yellow, orange and pink to pop in and out of the piece.

Setting up the quilting part, I started looking at videos and how best to approach this. I was essentially setting up a large applique quilt, but have decided in many recent times that I feel like I have very little patience for handwork. I needed to do this quilt raw edge.

I remembered a video Leah Day did of a piecing applique quilt from several years ago.

If you don’t swing back to her video, I used the ideas of a few major concepts that later helped me with my quilt.

1. Leah showed the upward direction on the back of her pieces so she could piece her quilt correctly again. This helped me get the right orientation.
2. Leah had an outline behind her fabric she was pasting her quilt onto.
3. Leah had flipped her design right to left to get the correct orientation on the front. This was something I should have remembered on my own, but actually did not.
4. Leah suggested cutting and placing strips down on the quilt, line at a time. Which was a slow way, but it got me organizing my quilt in such a way, I didn’t get any part mixed up with any other part.

Ok so I flipped the design around and put the new flipped design on another piece of heat n bond paper. I also eliminated the very “darkest” teal. In matching it up in a line with the other pieces, it had the wrong tone. It was darker, but it had a little bit more brown or grey tinted into the fabric color that didn’t “pop” with the rest of the quilt color.

Actually eliminating the one fabric made it easier. I had done a proof of concept piece, and as much as I liked the tweezers and setting the pieces down, I actually liked having slightly larger pieces in my finished piece. It makes it more likely to be done when this is all said and done if the pieces are a little larger.

The darkest teal in this piece above, I took out.

Then I had one more challenge that I myself had created for myself. My original design was on heat N bond, which would mean that if I added pieces to my finished quilt and ironed them down, that I would heat n bond my “design” to the table.

Luckily, I had all the small quilts I have been free motion quilting during the month of March. I took a quilt sandwich of similar size, placed that on the table, and then took a piece of freezer paper, traced the outlines onto the freezer paper from my heat n bond design, then heated up the freezer paper “pattern” onto the back of the quilt sandwich as a barrier for the table.

I had traced the outlines of my design several times before really getting started on the fabric part of my quilt.

When everything was ready, I took some close up pictures of my design for reference.

And once I had the whole quilt photographed, I carefully cut up the patterns out of the heat n bond paper, one strip at a time.

It was so nice using solid fabrics for this quilt, I didn’t have to worry about right side and wrong side. I applied each piece of my template to a piece of numbered fabric. I tried to consider the raw edge quality of the quilt, and attempted to make the main line go along the grain of the fabric if possible.

After applying the pattern to the fabric, I carefully cut the fabric around each piece, giving a little bit of a seam allowance to each side evenly. I was going to have to slightly overlap the pieces with the neighboring pieces. If each of these pieces didn’t match up with my original designed sizes, that was ok, as long as the overlaps made sense with the rest of the quilt.

And here was another section cut out and then flipped over.

And a different section that was meant to be “interrupted by another piece”. –  Shown from the back.

As I completed each section (slowly), I carried them over from my working space to my ironing board.

After cutting out to size all the sections of this quilt, I picked a section to start with, and using the (faint) outline on the freezer paper as a guideline for placement, got my section organized the way I wanted it. Then hit it with a hot iron.

The adding of each section became more and more fun. As long as I was paying attention to what goes under what piece, this quilt seemed to work out well. You may be able to see the faint outline under the off-white fabric.

I ended up using tweezers to help me place the “right” fabrics on front or on the back. For me, my general guideline was to have the lighter fabrics on the bottom, except in cases where that was an “alternating design”. I also tried to keep yellow on the bottom in places I would also be able to chose that too.

I originally had a different blue piece for the top corner that matches the “eye” I have on the right side. After doing all these pieces and strips on these smaller sections of lighter blues, I decided I wanted to add a little bit of color to the background. Adding even more of the quilt pieces to the quilt below.

In addition, I had a bright patterned yellow fabric that I tried to put into the quilt that would fit in the section next to the blue as part of a “sun” piece. Boy was it bright and distracting. I laid the cutout piece next to that section of the quilt, and it was too distracting. It felt like a “sun” part, but it just wasn’t working.

I did find a very light yellow and forgetting to flip the diagram over, I ended up placing the very very light back of that piece on the bottom right corner opposite my blue piece. It’s there, but hard to even notice, it’s so light.

And then I put the “front side” of the really light yellow to make sure I got a feeling of “offwhite” for the challenge portion of the quilt. It was a very lightly mottled tone-on-tone that fully reads as solid.

This is actually where I am with this quilt right now. It needs sewn down currently.

I did get it spray basted to a piece of batting and backing is the blue fabric in the “eye of the bird”. It reminds me of a bird with arms and a ball in his hand that trumpets out the front.

Sorta kinda but not really.

As I sew these pieces down, I will also quilt through the quilt sandwich at the same time. This will save me a step.

I was able to show off what I have finished to the guild on Tuesday, which was the “soft” due date for the quilt. We had quite a few people bring their challenge quilts to the guild meeting. Mine was not finished, but I was able to hold it up for all to see what I was working on, and to my knowledge, none of the pieces fell off in transport to or from the meeting.

This is going into our quilt show held on July 8th & 9th. Assuming I can actually sew it down & bind it in time. I may even use the challenge fabric in the binding!

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