Two Small Quilts

Good morning, my friends. It was a busy sewing day yesterday. Fortunately, my sewing cat was at the ready when it was time.

Quilts can be rowdy when they're close to being finished. Smitty held that wild thing down while I squared it up.

Then he helped me select a binding fabric. I can't remember where or when I bought this, but I'm fairly certain I had quilt bindings in mind for it. The stripes ran vertically, and I wanted them to run horizontally for my quilt binding. It needed to be cut parallel to the selvage edge, which made for a quick cutting of binding strips. I needed four strips, and they were cut two at a time.

When I had it sewn on, it looked like this:

Probably I stopped for lunch then. When I came back I started sewing together the quilt top for Bernie's Mittens. I had in mind to use this fabric I purchased last winter when we traveled through Fortuna, California, on our way south. It was to be representative of Lavender Rose Fabrics, in Eureka, California, in one of the Shop Hop quilts. We were on the coast, but driving through snow. To my eye, this fabric covered both ocean and snow.

To be sure about my selections, I asked for a consult from the Resident Engineer. He liked this combination.

I wanted just a tiny stop border to bring out the lavender in the outer border fabric. When both borders were sewn on, it looked like this:

There were several fabrics I could have used for the back, but this next one was the only one large enough to cover without piecing it together. The quilt is only 12 x 16 inches. For such a small quilt, I wanted a single piece of fabric for the back.

And now it's sandwiched for quilting. It was tempting to finish it off, but I'm going to wait for Big Bertha to come home from her spa treatment. There are some fancy stitches on that machine I might like to use as "quilting."

That brought an end to my machine sewing for the day. I went upstairs and hand-stitched the binding for Broken Hearts while we watched the news.

And that's a finish. It's another "trashy" quilt, and it finishes up at 30 x 32 inches.

It's a good table topper for Valentine's Day.

Today is a grocery shopping day. Even on busy days, I try always to find time for sewing. When I make my way into the sewing room today, I'll get to work on the last block for the Vintage Linen quilt. Here are the blocks I have so far:

I'm excited to have all the blocks finished because I have a good idea for how to sew it all together. It'll require that I go shopping, and that's only the beginning of the fun. I have a vision for this quilt. I just hope I can make it work.

Okay, so there's a busy day ahead. Time for breakfast. I'm going to try to get a walk on the treadmill before we head off to the grocery store. On the other hand, maybe just walking through the grocery store is enough exercise for one day. Your thoughts?