Monday, July 22, 2019

Too Hot To Trot {Literally}

Depending on where in the world you live, you might have spent your weekend similar to me: being outside as little as possible and avoiding the awful, oppressive heat and counting down the hours until the cool front moved in.

Saturday I had to make a quick trip down to the quilt shop to drop off quilts for their gallery! We are just so excited that Capital Quilts is carrying some of our favorite HBD patterns and that I am teaching a class there in just two weeks! If you are semi-local, consider coming out for a class on our Ready, Set, Soar Pattern!

While I was there, I picked up a couple cuts of fabric. The top fabric, from Vintage Picnic, will be the binding for my April Showers bee quilt. The other two fabrics were picked from clearance for general stash additions.


I spent the rest of the day working on the bindings of the three quilts that my mom brought back to me from the quilter -- two went to the long armer and one quilt she quilted. One by one, I trimmed each quilt and added the bindings to my Double Delight. Good Fortune, and April Showers quilts.


This was the pile of aftermath on my kitchen table from trimming three quilts. While I bought the navy pear fabric for the April Showers quilts, I used the backing for the binding for both Double Delight (the navy fabric peaking out) and Good Fortune (the red fabric). I hand bound Good Fortune, but the other two quilts were bound completely by machine.


(A quick aside: would you find it helpful for me to write a tutorial about using the backing for binding? Talking about trimming your quilt after quilting to maximize usable fabric? Tell me in the comments!)

So spoiler alert: I have three (t-h-r-e-e!) finished quilts that I will be showing off over the next two weeks! But none today, because the heat was just too much to try to take pictures of them outside.

I had also not yet put away my Jingle Bell Square fabrics, so I decided that I would make whatever units I could make -- not necessarily worrying about making full blocks -- and set them aside for the next time I pull out this project. In sorting my scraps, I found some larger pieces that allowed me to squeeze out *five* more blocks for this project!


Now I have 14 red blocks and 12 green blocks -- a total of 26 out of the 49 that I need to make -- now I have officially crossed the 50% mark!

I have also been keeping up with making my border QSTs and did end up with a few extra block parts:


But, ideally, the rest of this week's blog posts will be dedicated to finishes! It will be so nice to have fewer WIPs on my list -- and we'll see how long I can resist starting a new project!

Sharing at What I Made Monday and Wednesday Wait Loss!

4 comments:

  1. You’ve been a busy, busy bunny!

    I live in Pacific Northwest Washington and our summer heat is just ramping up. We hit 80 degrees a couple of times in May and thought we might be breaking out the portable air conditioning unit, but then June and the first half of July we went back to low 70’s. Perfectly comfy for me. Especially when I can open the house up at night and get the house down to 63 degrees, as our overnight outside temps are still in the upper 50’s.

    It’s weird but August and September have always been the hottest part of summer. I remember as a kid going back to school, eager to wear new fall and winter school clothes but roasting because of the long sleeves and heavier weight dresses. And yes, I can remember in the 3rd grade our school principal coming around to each of the classes, announcing that girls could now wear pantsuits-meaning matching tops and bottoms. But absolutely, no denim jeans for girls “even if they are pink with purple polka dots!. Girls wearing jeans would be sent home.” My, how times have changed! But I digress...

    Yes, please! I’d love to see a tutorial on using backing for binding and getting the most usable fabric from trimming quilts for binding!

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  2. So much progress! And I have a few guesses about how long it'll take for you to pick up a new project... :D Thanks for linking up to What I Made Monday.

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  3. Gosh! What a lot of projects you're getting done! That must feel so good. Thanks for sharing your progress on Wednesday Wait Loss.

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  4. Last weekend was miserable, this weekend was so nice. I was in New Orleans on Tuesday when the front finally reached there. Congrats on all the finishes. Looking forward to seeing how they all turned out.

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