As near as I could determine this one hasn’t been a UFO for an extremely long time based on some of my other projects. It was a quilt-along from the National Quilters Circle and the first clue was released in October of 2018. The first photos I have of my work were from March of 2019. I was stalled on the project for quite awhile because I had some mismatched points in the centre and it took awhile to talk myself into taking it apart and fixing it. The top was finished by May of 2020 mainly because it appeared on my 2020 UFO list. When it appeared again on this year’s list I was motivated to get it done.

I used only straight lines for the quilting but I tried to be a bit creative in the lines I stitched while keeping some consistency. I’m pleased with the results and I’m feeling more confident not using any free motion for my quilts. I saw a video for using a stencil to quilt feathers with a walking foot. I tried it for the border but changed my mind; by the time I was ready to do the border I just wanted it done and feathers were going to be too time-consuming.

That did, however, give me the idea of using my quilting rulers to form a pattern. I used chalk to mark the pattern and it was relatively easy to use my walking foot for the quilting. Although I need to measure things out better it certainly worked; best part of the ruler work was that it hardly shows so my pattern placement hardly shows. I’ll be exploring this technique more often.

Although the purple backing isn’t really a good match for the purple on the front it is a nice fabric with lavender stalks in the pattern.

UPDATE: This quilt went to Kathryn

Friday, July 16, 2021

I was sewing today with Stacia and Deloise; we worked on our July postcard from the Temecula Quilt Company. As usual mine was very scrappy. The half-square triangles were already finished (leaders and enders) so all I had to do was arrange them in rows.

In my mind our first check in was going to be at nine but that was nine Saskatoon time. I was barely out of the shower when Deloise called to find out where I was. By the time we did our second check in both Stacia and Deloise were pretty much finished their projects while I was still working on the centre of mine. We discussed what we would work on when we finished the miniature; I volunteered that I would get back to my quilting when I finished.

Truth be told I barely finished my project before our last check in of the day. And there was no moving on to another project for me. I suspect Stacia finished catching up on the mystery we are doing and Deloise probably finished the quilt top she’s been working on.

This was a project that I did with my Thursday sewing group, starting in March of 2020. We each had different panels to work with but I knew the quilt shop had a Paris panel so I decided that would be what I’d use for my project. As it turned out I needed three panels and was very lucky that they had enough of them. In hindsight I could have made the project smaller but I didn’t know then what I know now. I used straight lines for the quilting but I didn’t get as much of a 3-D effect as I was hoping for.

Because I used three panels I had a few scraps left so I used them to piece the backing. This is as close as I’ll ever come to a reversible quilt and you might be fooled if not for the two Eiffel Towers.

This now hangs on the wall in the spare bedroom. The door is usually shut to that room but on the few times it is open I’ll feel like I’m back in Paris.

Here is the view of the Eiffel Tower from the apartment we stayed in while we were in Paris. A bit more industrial-looking than my interpretation.

I was already behind by the time Stacia, Deloise and I did our first check-in. Deloise had her top finished, Stacia had about four seams left to sew, and I had about four seams done. I keep telling myself that I’m not a slow stitcher but they are exceedingly quick. Works for me!

It was no problem coming up with the squares I needed for the top. My new scrap method works well; I had to decide on the colours I would use and then it was just a matter of opening the right bin and pulling out the fabric and doing the cutting. In many cases I already had the right-sized squares cut.

I used flannel rather than batting in the wall hanging and it worked fine. The quilting stitches don’t bury as deeply as they do in batting and in some designs that might be more of an issue. I also think it would be harder to bury the ends in flannel – not as much middle ground so the thread doesn’t show on either the front or the back.

I used a single fold binding using the fold-over technique I’ve tried before. I heard that it was easier to get a good machine binding done if the background, backing and binding fabric were the same; this piece seemed like the perfect time to try it again. I’m still not all that happy with the corners and I had to go around twice because I missed the fold-over on the first round. Had I done that properly from the get-go it would have been a better finish.

I love these small do-it-in-a-day projects!