I was making a trip to see my quilter yesterday so all week I made a huge effort to get the piece done. I had to put on the last border, make a binding, and make the back. I slowly made may way through all the steps a few seams at a time and was able to get the quilt to a place where it was ready to quilt.
The first thing I accomplished was the final border. I am pretty proud of these borders. I did have put a spacer in on two sides to make two sides fit, but I really feel like, as April Rosenthal said, I have mad math skills. Really, I don’t but it was nice of her to say and it is a nice thought to consider since nobody who knows me would say math is a strong point for me. 😉
In the process of the last border, I did have to make more blocks. I forgot to make the last two corner blocks when I was making the last border blocks last weekend (I think??). I think I was distracted by the Black Friday Sew-in Google Hangout. I was trying to do something rather rote so I could pay attention to what the others were doing, but apparently I can’t count, sew and Hang Out all at once.
The back and top are too large for me to photograph on my design wall, so Friend Julie and Colleen were kind enough to hold both up when we brought it over to Colleen’s to be quilted.
I was really pleased with the photo (despite being taken on my phone), but also with the way the quilt came out. The spacers don’t really show up much and I think the top looks really great.
We talked a lot about the quilting. It will be quilted in Signature Thread in the Cotton Candy colorway, which is a variegated that gets used on my quilts a lot, because it blends with my fabric color palette pretty well. I also chose bamboo batting this time, because Colleen said regardless of the density of the quilting, the quilt will still be drapable. This might be a bed quilt, so drapability is good. Also, I have been wanting to try bamboo.
The back went really well. I used a big piece of IKEA fabric that Kelly got for me. I thought I had 6 yards, but think I ended up with three, thus the piecing of the other part of the back. I used up the background fabric and most of a half yard of the barcode fabric, plus the stitch purple to add a little width and provide some distinction between the two halves of the quilt.
The stitch purple is a bit of a precious fabric and I was reluctant to use it lest I need it for a ‘better’ project, but I decided I didn’t want to use ‘bad’ or ‘ugly’ fabrics for the back because I still have to look at the back and I want the back to be nice, too. And, of course, there is always more fabric.
This is a big project and it is finally finished. WHEW!