Project Quilting 10.2

Yesterday's sewing was fast and furious. It ended with a nearly-finished quilt for this second challenge for Project Quilting. The theme this time around was "Red, White, and Blue." I spent several hours considering what I'd like to make. I first chose a mini quilt. The fabrics were pulled before I decided it didn't really light my fire. Then, I chose a patriotic table runner and pulled those fabrics. But somehow, the Fourth of July in January wasn't really very exciting either.

It occurred to me that lots of people would be doing patriotic quilts for this challenge, and I wanted something a little different. I found a pattern called "Tweety's Snowflake" from Wendy Butler Berns free on the internet, and then I was ready to go. And when I say "go," I mean like when the starter's pistol fires and you really go like your life depends on it. This morning I hand-stitched the binding, and my little quilt was finished. I'm calling this quilt "Feathers and Flurries."

The pattern by Wendy Butler Berns was published in Quilter's Newsletter in the December/January 2014 issue. You can find the free pattern right here. Hers was done in different colors, and I had some fabrics in my stash I would dearly have liked to use. But the challenge was for red, white, and blue only. We didn't have to use all the colors, but we couldn't use any other colors. With that in mind. I started here:

There was top-stitching to be done, and so I used this midnight blue for most of that.

When that was finished, I added a border.

I wanted to make sure the big white snowflake would really stand out against the background, and I came up with a method to prevent the background fabric from showing through the white. I simply took a small piece of fabric and then fused a swatch of Pellon SF-101 to the back. That made a solid swatch of fabric. From there, I just fused as usual with Heat 'n Bond Lite and got a nice white snowflake with no show-through from the background. I used a white metallic thread to stitch it down, and that gave it a little sparkle.

The bird has a blue hot-fix nailhead for his eye.

I used the same white metallic to quilt some snow flurries.

And I did a little top-stitching on the snowflake for even more sparkle.

The metallic thread was behaving beautifully, and so I decided to switch to this midnight blue metallic to quilt the border.

I quilted some snow flurries in there too.

Here's how it looks from the back. You might remember this fabric from the Quilting Snowladies.

And then my little quilt was finished except for the binding.

In my leftover scrap binding bag, I found a perfect binding in exactly the length I needed. It always feels like a little bit of a victory when I can use one of those leftover binding strips.

This morning, I hand-stitched the binding, and my little quilt was finished.

Here's how it looks from the back.

Yesterday, I still needed to hand-stitch the binding for the Let's RV wall hanging.

Here's how that looks from the back.

That makes two finishes in two days, and five for the month of January. At this rate, I'll finish 60 quilts in 2019! (As if.) Also, I almost forgot I needed to make two little yo-yo's for the Garden Sunshine blocks. That was pretty simple and quick.

I decided to use a buttonhole stitch to sew them to the quilt block in the same way I used buttonhole stitch to stitch down the other applique pieces. To make it easy on myself, I pressed a little bit of Heat 'n Bond to the backs.

Then I fused them to the quilt block.

Then I both shortened and narrowed the buttonhole stitch on my machine.

And then I stitched them down. That finishes off that block.

So there you go...a solid day of sewing. Or a day of solid sewing...take your pick.

Today our weather is supposed to improve a little. I'm going to get out for a walk. This morning, I want to get a start on the Appalachian Memories embroidered block, and if I do more sewing today, I'll get after those alley cats.

Do you have the day off today? You can thank Martin Luther King's mother for that.