Spider Iris Finished!

I took 2 + hours to finish a 30 minute job of binding. I had a purple binding all ready to go and I decided it was too dark and then I couldn't decide how wide to cut the binding. I decided to use a single layer binding and I had to allow a little extra to go around the layer of Timtex.  In the end I went with  the same lavender as the iris and I made the binding too wide but it just makes a wider binding on the back. I stitched on the front right next to the binding to sew the binding on the back but it is also fused on the back. I almost forgot the triangles in the corner to hold whatever I am going to use to hang it or hold it up. I am happy with it and it is not going anywhere and not going to be judged so what if it isn't according to "the rules". Right?

This picture shows the back. This is one of those plastic sign holders and not what I will actually use though with the Timtex inside it stands up and just needs someting to lean against soI could use it if I put it in a corner or on a shelf where the back wouldn't show. I like the idea of not having everything hanging on the wall so I may look for one of these plastic holders in a little bit larger size. Of course, everyone always wants to look at the back so I don't want to use something that looks cobbled up.

The color in these two pictures is much more like what it really looks like. I turned off my flash and the green shows up.

After I finished the binding we took off for the day and went to Pymatuning Lake in Pennsylvania to the  Pymatuning Wildlife Learning Center. There are 6 Bald Eagle nests there and we like to go every so often to see if we can spot the eagles. There are only 2 pairs of nesting eagles using the nests right now but the are some immature eagles that hang around and sometimes use the empty nests.
Today we hung around a while and were rewarded with a spotting of 2 immature eagles flying around. It is not like we are seeing them up close and personal but we can make them out with our binoculars.  Every now and then they will surprise us and come a lot closer but no luck with that today. After we left there we drove a little further to a hamburger stand (established in 1952) where we ate hamburgers and wavy cut french fries at a picnic table in the garden and watched the hummingbirds. A fun day for us old folks.

Spider Iris Doodle

This is what I have been working on while I think about the borders for my spiral log cabin quilt. It is one of my doodles that I think looks like an iris, a spider iris (like a spider mum). Never heard of a spider iris, well here it is! 



Spider Iris ready for binding



 I enhanced the color a little to show the correct color of the iris but the background shows up with too much yellow; it is  more like a soft chartreuse. It is 12 x 12 and has a layer of batting and a layer of Timtex. I was winging it experimenting all the way with this one. I  I fused the flower and then layered the top with a layer of Warm and white batting and did the satin stitching and the French knots.

I didn't know if I liked it or not so I let it rest a few days. I decided that I liked it well enough to keep working on it and then I was afraid to mess it up with machine quilting. It is small so I decided I could do a little hand quilting with embroidery floss and "big stitch". I used 2 strands of purple and 1 strand of lavender to add a little something to the flower. I thought about switching to machine quilting at that point but decided to keep going with the hand stitching. For the first round of echo quilting I used 1 stand of darker green and 2 stands of chartreuse and then switched to 2 stands of chartreuse for the rest of the quilting. 

The back of the batting layer.



When I finished the echo quilting I layered it up with the Timtex and the chartreuse fabric for the backing and machine quilted to outline each petal. I used the same  thread as the satin stitching and stitched very very close to the satin stitching.  It took a long time; I was going v e r r r y slow but I think it looks good. Now it is all squared up and ready for the binding. I love that all the mess on the back of the batting layer is inside and will never show.

 Now that I like it I am once again worried that I will mess it up. We''ll see what  tomorrow brings.