Quilting progress

For several years now, I've been able to take some time off work at the beginning of August and spend it at my parent's house.  It's become a bit of a tradition that I have a project to work on there.  Four years ago (time flies!!), I refinished my Singer 66 cabinet.  Last year, I refinished a wooden desk I rescued from the curb.  This year I only had a few days.  With Finish-A-Long being a big motivating factor, I brought three quilts to quilt on the long arm.  Due to car issues (stupid oxygen sensor!), my trip was shortened by a day, so I was only able to complete 2 tops.

The first quilt is a 'bonus' quilt made from leftover trimmings. Heather and I took a workshop a few years ago and made whirling star blocks.  She was going to throw her trimmings out and I said, 'STOP--- I'll take them!".  Eventually I pieced the trimmings into rectangles and then the rectangles into strips.  It evolved into a somewhat Chinese Coins pattern in a perfect baby size.  I had the gold fabric in my stash for aaaages and I'm thrilled to use it up. Same with the backing fabric-- it's a light pink calico that I bough a bunch of years ago and it has been used in tons of my quilts.  It felt good to use the majority up in the backing.  Keeping the trend going, I had a long-time-in-my-stash turquoise that goes nicely with the gold that I'm using for the binding.  This quilt will go to Project Linus on behalf of the Mad City Quilt Guild.

Another great thing about these charity quilts-- I was able to zig zag together leftover chunks of batting into usable sizes for both of these quilts.  Hooray!

The second quilt that I worked on was my long in the works Rainbow (really just cool colors) String Block quilt.  As far as I can tell, I started the blocks in January of 2014.  The inspiration came from reading another person's blog (totally don't remember who!) and thinking that it would be a great way to use up scraps.  Well-- I doubt my scraps are too much tamed. =o  I don't know what to use for the binding.  I could do scrappy, just like the quilt.  Or the same fabric as the back?  It's a funky blue/green polka dot.  Once it is complete this will probably go to a local foster child that ages out of the program.

xoxo, 

Kristin