Fixing a Cheat

Saturdays seem to always be a mixed bag of paying work, errands, chores, and sometimes sewing.  Luckily the latter did happen today, including fixing a cheat.  March's UFO Challenge pick was the Rick Rack Road quilt.  Although I called it a finish, it was really only 2/3 quilted.  The magazine (Quilt Sampler Fall/Winter 2007) had shown a sort of stacked feather/flower design filling the background portion of the rick rack, which was beyond my skills.  I couldn't decide what else to do.  

The quilted sashing and colored portions of the rick rack and the unquilted backgrounds.  There were 70+ of these triangles and I could not face filling them with a stop-and-start motif.  Today, inspiration struck.

I did a loop-de-loop with continuous stitching all the way through each column.

I think the big loops complement the rick rack nicely and continue the soft curves of the other quilting.

A bit hard to see, but look at all the texture now.  It is no longer a cheating quilt! 

UFO #1 finish

Rick Rack Road is no longer a UFO.  Thanks to Judy's challenge, it's now a quilt.

Pattern of the same name from Quilt Sampler Fall/Winter 2007.  I liked this pattern because all the units were made exactly the same size, so very easy cutting and piecing.  Plus, I got over 100 bonus triangles to play with!

Scraps and stash with a few purchased background fabrics.

This pretty floral border and the Moda dot for the binding were just the right colors.

I love a pieced backing!  So happy to have this for spring and summer color in the living room.  It is a big throw, 69 x 77, so plenty of tucking in real estate on cool spring evenings. 

Design Wall Monday--March 28, 2011

Last DWM of March--boy this month has gone fast!  There is nothing on my design wall as I have been working very hard to get my March UFO Challenge quilt finished.

After first securing all the zig zag rows with some curved line stitching, I tried a little free motion quilting in the floral bands separating the zig zag rows but did not like the effect of the dark green thread I was using. Too busy.  Rip, rip.  Then I decided a trellis effect might be nice, so worked a few lines of straight stitching.  Too severe.  Rip, rip.

Much better!  I like the softer curvy lines and the irregular pillow shapes with that pretty floral.  Now the hard part will be filling in the open background areas with some emblem/design--feathers would probably be great but I have never done those yet.  I may just put the binding on first!  See more design walls on Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Good excuse

I have a very good excuse as to why I did not post the promised photos yesterday...I left my camera at the bridal shower I attended yesterday!  But that gave me the opportunity when I picked it up to have a private visit with this happy, about-to-be-married woman, my dear friend Tanya...

...who was extremely excited about a Target gift card here.  She was equally excited about the bag I made for her:

This was made all from fabric I had on hand, from a pattern called Market Fresh in the December Quilts and More magazine.  The orange print was from the Katie Jump Rope line, as was the brown print band on the inside.  It's a good sized bag, 20 inches wide by 17 inches deep, with a squared off bottom to hold lots of stuff and outer pockets on both sides .  I put a cookbook in there.

It took 3 1/2 hours to put this together, including cutting the pieces (twice for the bag front/back when I cut the wrong width! Pesky math again).  The instructions for the straps used midweight sew-in interfacing but if I made this again I would definitely use fusible as it was rather tedious to have to pin and hold the interfacing down the middle of the strap before folding over the opposite 1/4" turned edge to the center and sewing. 

My quilt hanger assisted on a bit of a windy day for the completed top shot.  This is Rick Rack Road from the Fall/Winter 2007 Quilt Sampler magazine, which I started some months ago as told here.

A foot peeking out of the bottom and the neighbor's chimney and trees coming out of the top...a fine composer of  photography I am not, but you all know that already! 

This is the floweriest thing I have ever made but I'm really liking the purples, greens, and other soft colors for Spring/summer.  Batting has been purchased and soon this will turn into a quilt!  I was able to get some sewing done late on National Quilting Day, cutting and sewing the Greenpiece BOM pieced blocks that I have been behind on completing for the past two months.  Next month's batch will be here soon and I have yet to get the wool applique blocks started.  But I do have a plan and that's half the battle of beginning!