Four Fabric Forest Finished with Finesse

Awesome Alliteration. I just had to add the "finesse" at the end of that title for, you know, finesse. It was a productive day yesterday, and I'm feeling pretty darned spunky about it. Four quilts were sandwiched:

The Vintage Tin quilt was the largest and most cumbersome to work with. It really should have been done first because I was kind of tired of sandwiching quilts by the time I got to it. 

Also, I wanted to say that I took a cue from Sharon Schamber's board method and used spray starch when ironing these quilt backs. She said she always starches her backs to get a smooth result. It occurred to me that the same thing would be true no matter what method one used to baste, and I believe it made a difference. When these were sandwiched and flipped to the reverse to check for puckers, I found them much smoother, and pretty much finished with only a little additional smoothing necessary.

And there they are...a stack of four to be added to the stack of two already hanging out next to Eliza for quilting.

When those were finished, I made up my grocery shopping list, took a short nap, played with the cats, and ate some dinner. It was around 6:00 by then, and Mike wasn't home. He's rarely out past dinner time, and so I found myself at loose ends a little bit...not really able to entertain myself...and both kitties were napping by that time. 

So, I did what any good quilter would do: I got to work quilting the Four Fabric Forest. This is a small quilt at 13.5 x 23 inches, and so I did it on Big Bertha, my domestic machine. Letting the fabric guide me, I decided to pebble in the foreground.

Then I stippled in the mid-ground.

Then I did a sort of scallop in the background, which is supposed to suggest clouds in the sky.

Then I switched to a black thread to put the markings on the birch trees. By the way, did you ever wonder how to tell the difference between a birch tree and an aspen tree? Well, I did, and so I turned to my friend The Google and asked. Here is what Google tells me:

The most visible difference between the trees is the bark. Aspen trees have smooth, white bark while birch bark can be gray, grayish-white, red or black. Additionally, horizontal markings mar the surface of birch trees while aspens typically only show knots or scars. (Source)

So there you go. And with that in mind, I decided these were technically birch trees. It's important to be technical when discussing such things, don't you know. Anyhoo...my trees.

So...by gosh and by golly...at that point, the quilting was finished. And Mike wasn't home yet, and so I went ahead and sewed on the binding.

By then, I was kind of running out of ways to entertain myself, and so I created this label.

That's my address and phone number there in the middle. Didn't figure I'd post that for the entire world to see. And by then, I was getting tired, so I quit for the day and got into bed to watch old episodes of The Daily Show. What? You didn't think I stayed up that late, did you? 

This morning, I hand-stitched the binding. The morning sun was so pretty that I took this rare Oregon opportunity to take it outside for its final pictures.

Here's how the back looks.

The rising sun's rays actually made it possible to see the quilting from the back.

And there you go. That's pretty much 24 hours in the life of a quilter whose husband stayed out late last night. Not a bad day's efforts.

Today I'm getting my monthly pedicure and dropping off the Vintage Miniature Sewing Machines for the quilt show at the end of the month. (I'm dropping it off at a local quilt shop, and you know that's always very, very, very dangerous for my wallet.) Then I'm going to the grocery store. I'm telling you...the action never ends here at the Three Cats Ranch.