What I did last weekend

Before you get too excited, first of all "I" didn't make this whole quilt, five of us in my small quilt group did. Second, we started it roughly nine months ago. What we did over the weekend was sew all the blocks together, and add the border. Its a fairly big quilt, measuring approx. 73x86.

Next step, getting it quilted. This is going in our Quilt Show auction in February, 100% donation, so we don't want to spend a lot of $$ on custom quilting. Nor do any of us have the time or inclination to hand quilt it. We decided on machine quilting edge to edge, soft flow-y motif, in red thread. Personally, I'm having second thoughts, as I don't think that will do justice to the work, the center medallion in particular. Its been suggested to donate the top, and let whoever purchases it to take care of the quilting. I think that might not be a bad idea.


The other thing I did over the weekend was finish my little Vintage Triangle doll quilt.

I'm not entirely happy with it. I love the quilt, but I fussed forever trying to find the right binding for it, even so far as to partially sew a couple on, then rip them off again. I'm not happy with this one, either. I really want the focus to be on the interior, not to be distracted by the binding, which  draws the eye away too much.

I tried several fabrics, including my standby black. Which I may end up going back to after all.

Yikes! Slanty dots, too bold.

 

Pretty, but distracting

Yikes again. 

I'm learning what might be very effective on a large quilt 

may not work at all on a small one.

May go back to this, or a flat black.

These colors were a bit off. Am I being too anal?

 Nope.

Nothing I tried was .. quite right.

What I really want is some more of the border fabric to bind it with, so it will more or less disappear. Unfortunately, that blue came to me from someone else's scrap pile, so good luck finding more of it.  Well its done, for the time being anyway. I'm almost certain I'll change the binding again, but I think for now I need to move on.

Meanwhile....

I've been up to my elbows in tomatoes and chile peppers, so my creations have been focused more on canning than sewing.

In the past couple weeks I've made five different kinds of salsa,

and two big batches of Hot Pepper Jelly (that's one batch, above.) I've also been roasting and freezing the tastier heirlooms, and will be roasting and/or drying the rest of the peppers. Lots of good, hot and spicy stuff for the winter!


love,
Sandy