Friday Finish

My Sajou quilt is done. Thank you Lori for such a fun Quilt Along.  I decided after much thought and consulting with my daughter (another quilter) that using the triangle pink for the binding would pull the eyes toward the edges and have one take in all the quilt, not just the center.

The  construction of the quilt gave me a bit of trouble, but from posts I have seen on blogs over the years, I was able to overcome them.

First off, once adding the last border, I saw that my outer edge had become wavy as the light pink triangle edges are on the bias and had stretched a bit. So I didn't think it was going to lay straight once I bound it.

Then I remembered a post a while back by Lynette at What a Hoot.  She had a large quilt which did the same. I remember her stitching around the outer edge of the quilt to try and take in the stretched fabric and make it more straight.

So that's what I did.  Setting my stitch length at  3 per inch instead of the 2 I normally use for piecing, I went all around the quilt. This longer stitch acted as if I was going to ruffle the edge. And it did, just enough to take in the stretched fabric. Click on the photo and it will get bigger so you can see the

stitch line and the gentle gathering above the green triangle. Phew, problem  solved.  Next I had to trim the backing and batting and get the edges ready for binding.  Oh, oh - as I laid my ruler on the first edge, I saw that I was going to lose most of my points of those print triangles because there wasn't  1/4"worth of seam allowance at those points. Drats.

Okay, I had enough batting around (just) to conquer the problem.  I laid my ruler with the 1/4" mark just at the points and cut off the excess from there. 
As you can see in the photo, my new edge became the batting not the quilt top.  When I sewed the binding on (using a stitch setting of 1.8 to make the seam strong), that new line was where I lined up the binding. Again, problem solved. I think I only lost a couple of points instead of most.

I'm linking to Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? and some others.  Blessings,

I Like Thursdays

I like that I only have two more blocks to go on the border for SLOL.

Then I can start on the right side border.

On my walk earlier in the week, I was so happy to see that my neighbor's wisteria is blooming again. I've liked this plant for a long time (-going on 50 years) but a tree in front of it kept it from blooming. The tree died and was cut out and let light do it's wonder.
 You can see the vertical prop the owner installed to keep the plant in place.
This year I see some white sprays of flowers. I wonder if they get purple with time.

Go to Lee Anna's I Like Thursdays to see what others found to share with us. Blessings,

Some of This; Some of That

Gosh! Haven't done a stash report in 2 weeks.  One week I was gone, and one was catch-up. So for the stars, house and Sajou I made, I used only .55 yards in that time. My new YTD total for destashing is 62.25 yds destashed out of the 76 yards needed by now to meet my goal.  

So I got my Sajou QAL top done:
I hope to sandwich, quilt and bind it before the end of the month, but I need to block it first.
What have you been up to?  I'm linking to Oh, Scrap, Sunday Stash, and Moving it Forward.
Blessings,

Now That I'm Back

and have a few minutes, I worked on Lori's Sajou QAL.  Here's part one:

and here is part two:
I hope to do part three this weekend.  If you want to play along you can find it here.

What are you up to?  I'm linking to Sarah's Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, and Myra's Finished or Not Friday - off now to make pizza for dinner .

Before I left

I made three more stars for SLOL:
and while I was there found some quilt inspiration on the guest floor.
It was a fun trip.  The ride home was a bit bumpy. When we got to SoCal even more so due to Santa Ana winds. In fact the plane had to make a wide circle to Ontario - all the way to Desert Hot Springs and Palm Springs and then all the way to Prado Dam and the 91/71 intersection (for those who know the area).  That made Ontario the center of the loop and used up time til there was a pocket of quiet air to land the plane. Winds were bad.  Another fact - a trash can flew out into the street as DH was driving to the airport to pick me up - the car is now in the shop getting a new front bumper, parking light and fixing a dent on the right bumper - all from the wind blowing things around.  Ah, me.

Blessings to you all.  Hope to get back to quilting soon.

On my Design Mat

my first of three houses for my Sweet Land of Liberty bottom border.  This was a bit challenging as it had to be a 4.5" house block unfinished.  Finally printed out Lori's photo of her houses and adjusted for the size - her's are 5x7 and mine as I said 4.5.  Bit wonky, but it will do. Had to approach it as a bit of paper piecing and patchwork.  Now to do the other two.

What are you up to?  Linking with Design Wall MondayBOMs Away, Monday Making, and Moving it Forward.

Blessings,

When the Grands are over...

...it's hard to blog. So this is late for a I Like Thursdays post, however I liked:

a gathering of clouds

becomes a stormy sky
with sunflowers highlighted in the river bed

and one lone Iris thinking it's Spring.

It actually did rain Wednesday night.  We're still waiting to read how much we got. I'll leave you with my two precious:


Visit Lea Anna's I Like Thursday post and for other bloggers reports.
Blessings,


SAHRR Round 5 and 6

  Ready to show rounds 5 and 6. Actually, the prompt for 5 was make 4 of something. So I chose four patch, and actually since that made my q...