A Finish

I have finished my Triple 4 Patch, binding and all.  I had long strips of the floral striped fabric from cutting the borders from the length of the fabric. I decided to use the lighter blue stripes for the binding.

 It looks darker here but I think you can get the idea. The lighter stripes were about 2 inches wide so I laid the edge of my ruler at the
edge of the lighter strip and cut 1/2 inch into the darker stripe for 2 1/2 inch strips. So my strips were like this on the left.

I folded it in half and pressed it and laid the strip on the edge on the quilt front with the raw edge of the darker fabric face up on the raw edge of the quilt.


After I stitched the binding all around I pressed it away from the quilt. You can see it in this photo
before I pressed it around to the back with only the lighter fabric showing.  I wrapped the binding to the back and pressed it down and secured it with thin strips of fusible web (for me this works so much better than pins); I stitched with the #4 Bernina stitch from the front.






 This is how it looks on the front. I didn't care to have the entire width of the stitches on the binding because it is already stitched on.





I wanted to have the entire width of the stitching on the binding on the back of the quilt, both for appearance and so the edge would be flat and secure. I used variegated thread  so it may be hard to see unless you enlarge the photo.


I couldn't get a shot of the full quilt today because there is no space to spread it out. I got all the the Christmas  quilts and wall hangings and linens out the they were are still all over my bed.

Almost a Finish

I finally had a day to sew all day; they are rare anymore for some reason. I machine quilted the Triple Four Patch quilt and all I have left to do is trim away the excess and sew on the binding. I am contemplating what to do about the binding. I have a lot of leftover binding pieces from years of quilting and I could add some more strips and make a scrappy binding. Another option would be to cut strips of something and make a one fabric binding.

I laid the quilt out on my bed for the photos because it is the best place for lighting and the best for this size quilt.

I also get photos that are pretty much true color.

I used off white/cream thread to quilt through the light colored squares and a multicolor  thread to quilt through the 4 inch squares. I echoed the lines of the light chains.










I used the same multicolor thread with the number 4 Bernina stitch and followed the edges of the floral stripes in the border.

I never noticed this one small 4 patch that is turned sideways until I was quilting through it. At first I thought I was stitching in the wrong direction and when I stopped to look at it I managed to get a bobble in my stitching line.
I thought at first I should fix the stitching because it shows up really well in the dark purple patch. It will be my "humility patch". Keeping it real, I never need to deliberately add a humility patch; there are always plenty of them to be found.

This is the back; I included my hand to show the scale of the print. The colors are brighter in the photo than they really are. I'm not sure why they show up brighter when the other fabric were pretty much true in the photos.

I will probably finish the binding tomorrow and then do some Christmas sewing. I need a few more small pieces for the end tables etc.

Triple Four Patch

I just finished layering and pin basting this triple 4 patch quilt. I must admit IT IS ABOUT TIME!  This has been hanging around for a while in various states of completion. The blocks were made by members of the Friendship  block swap group. I think I requested the blocks 2 different years, maybe 3. I had them in a box and every so often I would make one or two more. I finally put them together  2 or 3 years ago and in January 2014  I added the borders. You can see a shot of the whole flimsy here.

This is the third time I have made a quilt with 8 inch triple 4 patch blocks and each quilt has been a different layout. It is one of my favorite scrap patterns because it is easy to cut all the main fabric patches from leftovers. I can cut them and save them and make a bunch of little dark and light 4 patches and save them and when I feel like putting them together it all goes together fast.

I won't get to the quilting before Thanksgiving but maybe soon after.

The Salon

No quilting to show today, just this bit of fun.
My daughter in law and my daughter were touching up their hair and dying their eyebrows. They asked if I wanted my eyebrows dyed too.

So....... here we are

From left to right it is my DIL Ruth, my daughter Marty, and me; all of us have dye on our eyebrows.  It was really hard to keep  a straight face for the photo shot and even harder when we saw the photos.

We should have taken an "after" shot.