Good Morning Quilters!
Are any of you basketball fans? I am a big college basketball fan, and filling out my March Madness bracket choices is an annual ritual. It has been fun this year because so far, my bracket is doing better than three of my Grandson's brackets. I am sure they aren't happy about it, but so far, I'm winning! And my very favorite team is now in the Sweet Sixteen. Go Green!
But my main news is that I have another UFO finish to show you this week. My cheddar baskets quilt is completed! I blogged about it when I started making these baskets in May, 2018. You can see my start on it (Here) if you want to go look. The pieced baskets (with appliquéd handles) finish at 3.5 inches square.
Once I decided on a layout, I was thinking of having a free motion quilter quilt a basket in each white plain block. But I decided to embroider a basket in the white squares because I couldn’t figure out who or how to get a long arm quilter to continue with my vision of bigger baskets there. I didn't know Sue Daurio then. I chose embroidery in cheddar floss so the embroidery blends with the pieced blocks and doesn’t overtake the little baskets.
Recently I sent it to Sue Daurio (her website is here) to machine quilt it for me. She had some great ideas, and as you can see, the quilting enhances the cheddar baskets and the embroidery well. Sue’s suggestions helped me decide what the results would be, and I am very happy with it.
It is one of those projects where I just couldn’t visualize how it was going to turn out, or what to add next, or what size it would be. Some UFOs are like that, and I am very happy that this one moved along the bumpy path of my thoughts and ideas and came out a completed quilt, and it only took five years! haha
Here are lots of pictures of the completed quilt. The last picture shows Penny Lane with it this week. She is now five years old, and she was just a puppy when I began this journey. Penny approves of it. The measurement of the final quilt is 74" by 74" square.
