Hi Adventurers:
As I mentioned in my earlier quilt post this month, my goal is to finish a quilt I made using a jelly roll and Jenny Doan’s (MSQC) two step block. I liked the block and pulled out a jelly roll to make it with no intentions other than to try out the block. My daughter Caitlin passed onto me that my brother was hoping I would make him a quilt too. In 2017, I made my sister Cheryl a lap quilt for her 50th birthday. My sister Dorothy and I are working on a king bed quilt for her. Those blocks are currently all at her house. So I have two siblings that have not received quilts from me – Scott and Teresa. Teresa expressed interest in a quilt I started at PIQF in a class I took from Kaffe Fassett. It is a great quilt, but it is green (because that is the fabric I had enough of).
Friday night I pulled out the quilt top and was happy to see that I had cut the borders and binding already. I just needed to sew the borders on. I have this little notebook that I keep in the sewing room with my ideas which make it easier to pick up where I left off as I usually have a good 10-20 projects going on at any one time. When I get stuck I either start a new one, or work on an old one. When I pulled everything out was when I remembered that the backing I purchased for this quilt (5 yards of pretty navy batik fabric) ended up being used in this year’s PIQF class I took from Gyleen Fitzgerald – Colourful Stitches. I have a choice to make. Either go buy 5 more yards of fabric or use the technique that Gyleen gave to us for piecing the back with fat quarters or scraps. The other challenge I have going on right now is that I had a pipe leak at the beginning of November that affected my sewing room. I have temporarily moved to the kids “game” room with 3 of my machines and 3 tables and a frame. The emergency packers packed a lot of my stuff but left random things. So I have to check to see if they left the batik fat quarter bucket that was on the top shelf of the closet in the sewing room. Cross your fingers. At this point I have the inner border sewed on. I still need to sew on the outer border, then I can piece the back if I can. I will update later this weekend how that is going.
Friday night I sewed on the 3 inch inner border. Saturday I discovered all those batik fat quarters I have are not onsite but I had already decided that I wanted to do a pieced back. A friend of mine texted me that Beverly’s is closing on Hillsdale in San Jose. After dropping Shaun off at the hockey rink to warm up for his game, I slipped over to Beverly’s to see what that I have. I hadn’t yet decided for sure whether I was going to do a pieced back. After seeing that still had a great batik selection and everything was 20% off, it only seemed appropriate to do a pieced back instead. I estimated that I would only need 6 yards to do a pieced back but couldn’t decide… I picked up 4 or 5 2 yard cuts that could be used for the back and a few more just because I liked them. I was thinking would make great placemats and napkins. Another could possibly be used for another quilt I plan to start soon, if not it was a solid and would be good for many things. The other quilt which I have mentally started calling peacock (because of the colors) is asian flavor fabrics. I found a batik that would be great with it but I have never mixed the types. Anyone with advice let me know.
Worked until midnight on Saturday night (had a hockey game to attend for Shaun and then the kid seemed to think he should have food) cutting the backing for this two step block quilt. Spent a bit of time calculating what I needed to piece the quilt. After I was all done, I considered redoing it with 18.5″ squares but didn’t want to redo the math. Maybe for the next big one will try 18.5 inch blocks. If I do, I won’t be able to use fat quarters. Something to ponder. The back has to measure 95″x87″ in order for me to put on the frame to quilt for this one. Cut up 2/3 of the pieces for the back Saturday night. Finished up 20 of 30 blocks, 27 out of 37 sashing pieces, and all 10 cornerstones. I will give you another update tomorrow. Will have to figure out a name for this quilt. Any thoughts please post them.
Peggy