Sew Along Time Stitching

The Sew Along is finished!

That means all the clues/steps are posted, 

but I am not out of the woods yet. 

I started stitching rows together.

There were a few false starts. 

Twosies were stitched together then 

one final block added. The last block

received another border piece. 

Yes, I put the whole first row

together upside down, with the

left and top border treatment 

turned around.  Started picking,

then restarted. 

All that picking and I still 

ended up with a "What?" area.  

Two border blocks together

since one block is turned. 

I made it thru the blocks minus 

the bottom row and placed them 

on the design wall. 

Can I say 'Holy Hannah, this thing is huge!"

I obviously missed the dimension talk

and happily sewed on, making a quilt 

that would cover my entire family!

This is when I again noticed a block

just a little different and had to 

do some rearranging.

 

I began to notice the size overwhelming 

my design wall, only 6 blocks made it into 

each row. It is now 75" wide without 

the 10" border added ( 1 1/2" + 3 1/2 " on each side) 

and it is 84" long,

It should finish about 96" square complete,

 which is a bit out of my comfort zone. 

I do like the design and other than a few, 

too light browns, the first and secondary 

patterns are wowzer!

Soo...I think I will make one more block 

then split the top into 2, 

using a 5 x 5 arrangement.

Each should be around 65" x 65" and 

the pieced border will be added to the top 

and bottom to step up the length. 

That is the current plan. 

Update. 

Two tops  ready for the pieced border.

Yay!  More stitching to come later in the 

week after guild planning and enjoying 

beautiful summer weather.  

We even listened to symphony in the park!

Look at that beautiful sky !

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with:

Design Wall Monday

Sew & Tell

Monday Musings

Sr SPS

Great Buys , Stash increase!

One quilter's extras are another one's stash.

A quilt group I belong to took a small road trip

to a sale run by a group of Quilters

who spent many years wintering in the south!

Truly Canadian Snow Birds. One had moved into a smaller space,

and the other two were just overwhelmed by their excessive stashes.

They decided to liquidate some and we were happy to help.

I managed to break my fast of fabric purchasing,

and ended up with a quantity of nice backing fabric.

They were also selling some recycling bags of big bits.

I couldn't resist and grabbed a surprise bag of goodies.

Here's a quick rundown of  my wonderful purchase.

The backing fabrics were about 3 meters each,

with one surprise of 4 meters when I got home.

They needed a nice wash and then into 

 the bin with the other backings.

The goodie bag yielded almost 10 m of

yardage!!

This beautiful red, and

a lovely forest print with silvery trunk tree trunks,

I also found  rich green that I just fell in love with,

but I later noticed that it is a cemetery print!

This beautiful techy type black and white print,

will really enhance a scrappy front.

The total increase for my stash this year is:

 42 m from this great sale 

8.5m Jan- Jun

50.5  YTD Purchased

Used  5 m, 3 m ( baby quilt)

42.5 total Purchased YTD

There are a few items near 

finishing so the numbers 

will change soon. 

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with: 

Stash Report

Donation Sewing

 The end of the meeting year 

caught one of the groups I attend,

with quite few quilts unfinished. 

Ever the optimist,

I asked for a bag and received,

seven quilts to tie or stitch up.

This group ties all their quilts.

So to prepare for tying, the quilts are

layered right sides together with batting,

stitched leaving an opening,

then turn right side, and a faux 

binding stitched around the outer edge.

I don't like to tie so I quilt some of these quilts.

Puckering usually isn't a problem.

If it feels or looks like it may pucker or shift, 

some pinning seems to stabilize it enough 

to get a smooth look without bunching. 

Here's a look at the ones I finished up so far.

Please note, I did not make these beautiful quilts,

 I am just doing the final step so they can be labeled and donated.

 

They were great fun to do 

and I certainly need practice to 

get used to my new sewing room buddy, 

a Bernina 820. 

Happy Stitching!