I admit it, these posts are getting as bad as the Rocky franchise. That said…I still have two more posts until I catch up with “Yo, Adrienne.” Until I relinquish the reins to this blog on July 20th, I’ll try to be more creative with the post titles.
We had another QfB Sew-In at the Viking Sewing Gallery at the Town Center on Thursday, July 4th. Joining me were Lynn Stevens and Robin McCallister.
Lynn finished her quilt top and will bring it to our Sew-In on Saturday, July 6th @ Country Crossroads. She needs to piece a back and then sandwich it. Today she worked on finishing the gray sashing on Robin’s quilt top and then making more binding to add to my roll.
Looks like the gray sashing is complete but we need to straighten out this pile of blocks.
Robin challenged the team at the Viking Gallery to make blocks for their own quilt donation for QfB. Here’s one of Robin’s lovely blocks.
and here she is in preparation for appliqueing a sea turtle…
I just love that blue fabric (available at Jo-Anns). It really looks like water and the turtle will be appliqued to it.
We all hung out pretty low-key for a few hours and I was able to finish machine sewing the binding to my quilt.
Here are some photos of my quilt during the quilting process using my dining room table.
the quilting part is FINALLY done after more than 75 hoopings. 
I also ripped out not only the straight line criss cross quilting I did without a walking foot last week on the Tweety Bird block, but also the embroidered / quilting swirl (below) I did in the blue center.
Had to do it, that back was too puckered for me to accept it. My seam ripper has seen a lot of action this week; that swirl was triple stitched!!
I generally hand sew bindings but thought with the QfB deadline looming, I’d better get this quilt finished. I played on one the Viking Gallery’s Topaz machines and tried out a fabulous edging foot. When I machine sew the binding, I always start on the back side and turn to the front. I know this is backwards, but I think this gives me a better opportunity for a nice clean stitched edge on the front binding…
and hopefully, stitching close to the ditch on the back.
My trusty seam ripper was overworked again today since I just wasn’t satisfied with how the binding stitches looked. I even had to vacuum the carpet of the Viking Gallery since there were so many threads on the floor around where I was sewing. Don’t know about you, but it seems I’m never satisfied with my works in progress. I quess I need to revisit the Quilter’s Pledge.
And here it is all finished with a very colorful scrappy binding…first the back….
and now drum roll please…. the front
Many thanks to my better half, Bubba for holding it up pool side so I could photograph it in natural light.
And last but not least, here it is all folded up ready for shipping up north.
This has got to be a record number of photos for one quilt, so I guess I’ll have to name it “The Kardashian!”
See you all Saturday for the next Sew-In.
Yvonne Maus
Great post Yvonne. Thanks for organizing the sew-ins. I know you are exhausted.