April OMG Complete!

I finally have Grassy Creek off the design wall (and onto the floor?), which was my goal for this month. This is so exciting to me! 

If you're a long-time reader, you may remember that I have debated forever about whether to just sew the blocks together and call it good or do the work to create the string borders. I decided it really needs the borders even though I do not particularly enjoy string piecing. I had just enough green left to cut out the skinny borders. 

I really, really love rotary cutting (and I am being fully serious here, I really love rotary cutting fabric) and cut the number of strips Bonnie said. And while I was cutting, I figured I'd go ahead and sub-cut one of the strips as she instructed. Except I was just a hair short for the last sub-cut, so I had to cut a piece from that weird leftover piece. That should have been my clue that something was wrong. Nope.

I blithely measured, cut, and attached my first two borders. Then I measured the top and cut the third. But...record scratch...I didn't have enough left to get the fourth one! 😩 What to do? I went through my Kona color chips to find what looked close and had a piece of the said color in my stash. Nope. Too far off. Did some searching online, decided maybe it looked like a Tula Pink color, and then remembered what project this green fabric was left over from. Ordered a yard to get one skinny little piece to finish the border. Crisis averted, just waiting for the fabric to be delivered. Here is how the quilt top looks at the moment. I need to cut all my foundation papers to the right size and then hope I have enough gray fabric left to make all the pieces. 

I ordered backing fabric and I guess I won the jackpot? There was about 3/8 yard extra.

I have just a few quilting jobs to share this week. 

First is Sara's memory quilt. She's made a whole series of these for her friends who are having significant birthdays. Quilted with Soho.

Next is Margaret's quilt. I'm calling this an art quilt. I had to think long and hard about how I wanted to do this one. I didn't want to stitch over the bird since it was quite thick and stiff, and an edge-to-edge didn't seem like it would best complement this quilt. I ended up doing a combination of computerized edge-to-edge in two different scales (Apricot Moon's Bird Bath), ruler work, and free motion quilting.  This first picture shows some ruler work, some micro edge-to-edge, and some free motion quilting. I think the birds on the stipple were about 1/2" tall?

I did free motion pebbling around the bird in the yellow and blue fabric.
I did a ruler-work bead board pattern in the outside border.
This picture shows my larger panto on my IntelliQuilter. I learned many tricks on the iQ on this quilt.

The last quilt I was able to complete this week is Penny's Bright Birch quilt. We went with a pretty dense quilting scale for the Together panto and it looks really good. It took about seven hours of stitching plus loading and advancing and basting time and almost two whole mini cones of Glide thread (Salmon on the front, Viking on the back).

The reason I haven't finished any more quilting this week is because it's basement carpet replacement time. The installer came Saturday to rip out the previous carpet and this week he's been working on installing the new stuff, so I can't get to my sewing room without being in the way.  
Negative progress?


I've been doing some much-needed deep cleaning upstairs. I've gotten quite a bit done, but not as much as I'd hoped. Isn't that always the way?

Out in the gardens, we did spearmint removal in the lower garden on Saturday evening. The weather was just gorgeous. I'm trying hard to resist the temptation to go buy plants because we are still getting the occasional freeze warning. I guess one nice thing about the cool nights is that the flowers have lasted a really long time this spring. Here is a nice clump of daffodils. 

My tulips outside the sewing room window are blooming, not that I am spending much time with them. These are the only tulips that have survived in my gardens.  The red blob is my shirt reflection.

These short irises are blooming--can't remember what type they are. 

My peas and lettuce have begun to sprout.

I harvested my indoor lettuce and now it looks like it may finally be done. Didn't get a picture due to the carpet installation.

Our Baltimore orioles arrived Saturday morning. They were hangry! LOL They attacked the windows and squawked like crazy until I put the jelly out. And the biggest surprise is that we saw a hummingbird Monday morning. I need to get the feeders out for them too. Seems like it's probably too cold for them right now? I haven't seen any rose-breasted grosbeaks yet. They usually show up around the same time as the orioles. I'm seeing mixed reviews on whether we should even have bird feeders out right now due to avian bird flu in waterfowl and poultry. It looks like as long as we're vigilant with cleaning the feeders, it should be okay for now.

Stop by next week to find out what next month's goal will be.

Linking with My Quilt Infatuation.


2 comments

  1. Grassy Creek looks wonderful. I have been on that frantic search for replacement fabric far to often! I love winning the lottery for extra yardage on an order. The color on those irises are really quite striking.

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  2. I have to say you were valiant getting your matching fabric for the inner border. And bonus on the end of bolt. I was wondering where you were shopping that gave you that nice extra hunk of fabric. Hum… I guess I should check out what is being said In my area about bird feeders. I enjoy watching them from my basement doors…while I’m sewing.

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