One Top Done, One Tired Girl.

I just finished the top for my brother’s quilt.

I sewed like a fiend over the past 3 days.  Driven.  Determined. And yes,  a force to be reckoned with!

And I’m happy with the results.

I wound up doing most of the piecing on my 301A that is in her original folding card table from the 1950s. 

Mostly for speed.

But also for work surface space.  It's nice to sew with the machine flush into the table…I have another table off to my left so it makes a large L shaped area –good for supporting quilt rows while joining them.  In this picture I’m  “webbing” the top together so that the quilt is pieced in rows across, and there are chaining threads holding the rows together.

This is one of those interesting quilts that does NOT get pressed until joining rows.  I do not press the blocks other than the center seam of the large half square triangle before joining them into rows of blocks.  The reason?  I want to be able to push all the seams in row 1 in one direction, and then all the seams in row 2 go the oppsite direction so all seams nest easily all the way down the quilt.

There is no way to tell where a block will end up, if it is turned this way, or that way --- and therefore impossible to know which way seams are to go before assembling into rows….

I decided on a simple 5”  scrappy border pieced from left over shirt parts.  While cutting squares for the blocks, I trimmed extra lengths of fabric into 5” widths and set them aside.

Usually I find myself sticking in an inner border as well, but I didn’t have any big yardage up here with me – just a bin of shirt parts.  And enough is enough.  The quilt is big enough, an inner border would have added that much more width, and that much more length.

It will shrink up a bit in quilting. 

I tried it on DH on the couch ---and it is the perfect size for a 6’2” brother to nap under…plenty of room for wrapping up in, and plenty of length for tucking around and under feet.

And I have just the “perfect” backing fabric at home – if there is enough.  Mark lives in Arizona – and this fabric has cactus all over it!  It was a gift from Sandi D – and I’ve been waiting for the right quilt for it.  This could be it. 

May have time to piece a backing tonight and get the quilting under way tomorrow.  I’m still on a mission ---the race to get this done is not over yet.

Time to clean up the sewing mess and head down home.

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