Comfort Quilt, Finished

 Chris said she unpacked the quilt, took one look at it and knew exactly how this quilt should be quilted. I adore the variegated black and white thread she used, and I love the quilting design.

I think I'm going to have to name this quilt "Over The Top"  because every aspect of this quilt goes over the top, and yet the quilt doesn't look like "too much."

So I added the binding,

turned it over, and started stitching it down.

taking photos every time the binding changed.

.

.

all the way around until I got back to the beginning.

 Julie likes the crumpled look.  Here you go, Julie!

Here's the finished quilt. I love it, and I know the recipient will too.

When It's Wrong, You Know It

I've finished sewing the 18 blocks needed for my Autumn table cover.  Then I calculated how much fabric I would need for the sashing.  Hmm. I didn't have enough of one fabric, and I didn't want to buy more. This is a scrap quilt, and I wanted to use what I had. 

I had quite a lot of this martini fabric. I expected it to be wrong, but I had to give it a go.  As you can see, it was an epic fail.  But nothing ventured, nothing gained. I tell my students it's easy to tell when it's wrong, and it's not hard to know when it's right. It's when it's so-so that we have difficulties.  The secret is to recognize, and admit that it isn't doing anything for you. (See "The Value of Meh")

After a lot of agonizing, and going through my stash to find something big enough so all the sashing pieces would be made of the same fabric, I said "The hell with it. It's a scrap quilt," and I started cutting the sashing pieces out of two separate dark fabrics.

I started laying the blocks out on the floor to get a feel for how to arrange them and quickly realized it didn't much matter, that they would look good no matter how they were arranged.  So I lay out some of the sashing strips to see what that would look like, then I lay out a few little squares to see what color I wanted those to be. Did I want them to show up (in which case I would make them gold) or did I want them to disappear (in which case I would make them brown) or did I simply want them subtle (in which case I would make them green.)

I think I like all three. What the heck. When you're going over the top, keep going.

Sign Here

This is the signature panel that will be going on the back of Julie's quilt.

The flimsy is complete. It needs to be trimmed and squared. I showed my son the backing I have selected. He doesn't like it, but I'm not worried about his opinion. The backing fabric is perfect. Over the weekend I also figured out what I will do for the binding.

My son said once, about one of my quilts, "Mom, you don't just go over the top. You keep going." So that has become a mantra of sorts for me.

"If you're going over the top, keep going."


Hmm...

Funny where inspiration comes from.