Design Wall Monday - August 31, 2020

Good Morning Quilters!  The picture below is of my friend Bonnie on the right and me on the left, holding up a quilt I was finishing this week. Bonnie knows my BFF Dee, from St. Louis, Mo, so we held the quilt up together to say Hi to Dee and show Dee the quilt’s progress.

This quilt finish should get a trumpeters fanfare !! 

UFO Chapter 1:   This quilt was started when I moved from St. Louis, MO to Williamsburg, VA., about 17 years ago.  My dear friend Dee, who makes wonderful MODERN quilts, attempted to make me a “you are going away-I will miss you” quilt of nine patches.  She knew I was a traditional quilter and what could be more traditional than a nine patch?  As my departure neared, she came over with some nine patches in a box with other uncut blue and white fabric.  She was frustrated about which way to press nine patch seams so they would be opposite the neighbor nine patch when the two blocks were joined together.  So she gifted me the box, the idea she had, and said she would miss me.  I think she said something about not ever sewing a nine patch ever again, but I could be wrong.  

UFO, Chapter 2:  While living in Virginia, I decided to add smaller nine patches to the ones Dee made, and put together a quilt top of two sizes of nine patches, Dee’s 4.5”x 4.5” blocks and mine at 3” x 3”.....I avoided seam joining issues by inserting white squares between them.  I don’t know exactly when I finished the quilt top, but I would guess sometime around 2005.  I thought I would machine quilt it on my domestic machine, and so I had a long armer baste it for me in anticipation of me learning machine quilting.  I was wrong.

UFO, Chapter 3:  It sat in this unfinished state until I moved from VA to Michigan.  This move forced a reality check on just how many quilts I had in UFO status.  In 2020, I’m focused on finishing some of them.  I pulled out the machine basting stitches, and asked my long armer to quilt it with a nautical theme.  It came back from her in July.  She quilted it in anchors and waves, as it will be used on the couch at the cabin.  I like the quilting, much better than I could have done.

UFO, Final Chapter: August, 2020:  Binding......I thought I must have something in my stash to finish this off, but what?  After “shopping” in my stash for a while, I found one fabric that would work, but I didn’t exactly like the way it looked.....

The solid blue stripe blended too well with the nine patches, if I used it either straight, or on the bias.  I did like the checked stripe part of it.........Wait!  What if I used the back side?  

That will work!!  I cut it on the bias, and sewed the binding on this last week - before I could change my mind about any of it!  Yeah!  The label will be an easy addition and this will be a UFO no more.  I showed the binding fabric via text with Dee and she said either side could be the “right” side.  

What have you finished this week, or what have you moved along the line toward a finish?

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