Some Very Fine Finishes!

It’s been a while since I have shared some of YOUR finishes on the blog!

I’ve had some gorgeous eye candy in my email lately, and I just can’t delay any longer!

Get a load of this Talkin’ Turkey in pinks and purples by Evelyn in Nova Scotia!

It dances, it sings, it’s full of scrappy strings!  I just love it!

Evelyn came down to see me last winter when I was in Florida – remember the trip where I got so so so so sick with the bilateral ear infection and bronchitis and pushed through?  Yep!  That trip!  And I couldn’t have made it through without the kind wishes and helps from quilters like Evelyn.

She writes:

Good Morning Bonnie!
Attached please find photos of my versions of Grand Illusion and Talkin' Turkey.
 

 Evelyn’s Grand Illusion! SO fun!

Grand Illusion was my first 'Bonnie' mystery but not my last. I had so much fun through all the steps. Even though I've been quilting for almost 40 years I learned new things while making this quilt.

The 'perfect scant quarter inch' and how to get it was one of the best. How my piecing has improved. The binding on this is the narrowest I've ever attempted and suits this quilt perfectly. 

Talkin' Turkey, started with you in February in Florida and finished in August. This has to be my very favourite quilt so far! I call it Pretty in Pink. So many memories are wrapped up in this quilt! More than three years worth.

From the planning stages, getting my first 'Featherweight' (thanks in part to you and your photos of so many students using them), to my first trip to Florida, to meeting you as well as all the wonderful ladies who attended those three workshops, to coming home to what seemed like endless snowstorms, a litter of seven puppies putting a dent in the progress and so many more.

I never realized that I had so many different pinks and purples. And, as you can see by one of the attachments, purely by accident, my favourite block of string piecing, that happy little dog!

I now use my little Featherweight for everything but the actual quilting. And all thanks to you.

I look forward to this years mystery as well as reading your posts every day. One of my favourite sayings is that you learn something new every day. And, at least in my case, this is very true!

I hope to join you on Quilt-cam tonight if I get home from work in time.

Meanwhile, have a wonderful day!

Your friend in Quilting,
Evelyn O'Brien

Talkin’ Turkey is from my book String Fling while Grand Illusion is found in the digital downloads section of my Quiltville Store.

Another amazing finish came from Deb in Dallas!

Check out her Quiltville Row by Row!

Bonnie

Long time no write.  Sorry for that.  I hope you are just lovin’ life.
 

As you know, I was working on a row robin in which I used your patterns for each quilt that came to me.  I also did a duplicate row to keep.  Here is my finished top made from all the duplicate rows.
 
It still needs to be quilted but you get an idea.  No idea if I am using borders yet or not.  It was fun and definitely challenging to find blocks that would work with their colors and quilt styles.  Obviously, if this top was all preplanned for myself, the colors would all mesh perfectly – but I love it just the way it is. 

What a great memory to have.  Thank you for the wonderful patterns you continually send our way.

Deb in Dallas

This is incredible!  I love what she has done, sizing the blocks in some cases to fit the format ---look how fin this is!  I spy Maveric Stars, Midnight Flight, Talkin Turkey, Big Bang from Grand Illusion, Virginia Bound, Wanderlust, and Jared Takes a Wife!
 
What a great idea, Deb! Thanks for sharing!
 
I also received an email from Linda who wanted to share a couple of Weed Whacker quilts she has recently finished!
 
I loved reading her email and the story behind how these quilts came to be.
 
She writes:

I am an amateur quilter. Until this year, the only quilting I had ever done was in the form of patchwork potholders – not a huge undertaking!

Over the years I had sewn flannel pajamas for each of my two nieces as their Christmas gifts, plus various dresses and blouses for many of their birthdays. I saved up the remnants from these projects, with the idea of one day making each niece her own patchwork quilt from the fabrics of her PJs and dresses.

The girls are now 23 and 20 years old, respectively, so that added up to quite a few fabrics for each girl.

Quilt with blue borders

This past summer I decided the time had come to sew those quilts. Somehow I stumbled upon your weed-whacker pattern on the Internet. Using it, I was able to assemble both quilts entirely through machine-stitching – a relative breeze.

I did them in tandem, to apply lessons learned on one quilt for the same step on the other quilt. I machine-tufted the pieced centers and did “stitch-in-the-ditch” quilting of the borders. (As you can see, I managed to use up some of my “bonus” squares in the pieced stripe of those borders!)

During the football games of the past two weekends, I hand-finished the binding, completing the binding on the second quilt just this past weekend.

The finished quilts are each 90 by 90 inches, one primarily blue, the other in shades of pink and burgundy (see photos below). The plan is to present them to my nieces for their respective birthdays this year.

Quilt with burgundy borders

I want you to know I really enjoyed this project, especially the challenge of working with some wildly diverse prints (e.g. The Cat in the Hat right next to a “girly” rosebud print). I committed myself to using every single fabric for each girl, distributing the variety of prints and colors as effectively as possible over the entire quilt top.

So thank you for your delightful weed-whacker pattern, and for your excellent instructions, as well as for the many other helpful tips I managed to glean from your web site. I’ll have to let you know my nieces’ reactions when they receive their quilts later this year! 

L.R. Andrews

What a great tribute to two lovely nieces!  I just know they are going to love these quilts and all of the memorable fabrics in them.

Weed Whacker is one of those quilts that is often missed because it is the very last pattern down at the bottom of the list under the Free Patterns tab at the top of the blog. 
 
It is made from 2’’ strips and 3 1/2’’ squares and all of her bonus units from behind the stitch and flip corners ended up in her wonderful pieced borders!
 
Is there a Weed Whacker quilt in YOUR future?
 
Our next Fine Finish is from Sue with an unexpected Carolina Christmas!
 
She writes:

Hi Bonnie

I caught your comment last week about using black as a background, so I thought I’d send this photo.  It’s the first time I’ve used a black background, and definitely will again.
 

 

Carolina Christmas from Scraps & Shirttails II 

 
It’s your Carolina Christmas in all batiks with blue/turquoise instead of green.  It also has a goof that I just found now when I took the picture.  I put the Fox & Geese blocks together wrong.  I was crushed when I first noticed it, but now I really love the way it changed the pattern to make the turquoise diagonal. 
 
At least I did them all the same and don’t have to pick anything out!  It’s not quilted yet – who knows when THAT will happen, and I have set aside a red batik for the binding.
 

I have all of your books, and love all of your patterns.  Thanks for all the work you do, and all the free things you give us.

This quilt is truly stunning, Sue!
 
And you didn’t put them together WRONG.  You put them together DIFFERENT!  And I love that!  So I hope you tell everyone that you did it on PURPOSE!  You can OWN THIS..and flaunt it!
 
You know, we really need to stop putting ourselves down. pointing out what we did wrong to everyone admiring our work.  It’s a bad habit – let’s break it!
 
And while we are at it..we need to stop doing the same thing to others, pointing out their “differentness”.  It cracks me up when someone tells someone from another country that they drive on the WRONG side of the road, or that they do this WRONG, or that WRONG – it’s not wrong, it’s just DIFFERENT and we need to embrace that!
 
And that’s my soapbox for today.
 
And yes, just as Evelyn mentioned at the top of this post…tonight IS QUILT-CAM!!  I’m excited to spe4nd some evening sewing time with you.  I’ll see you here on the blog at 9pm Eastern.
 
Happy Tuesday, everyone!

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