Binding Toes in the Sand

My quilt frame is empty, I finished quilting Toes in the Sand on Monday night.

The binding is on.

I had to piece the backing. Not sure what happened. I needed five yards of fabric, I had only three (?). 

Luckily I had HEAPS of fabric left over. Probably enough to make a second quilt. 

So tonight I am stitching the binding down. Quilting this has been a great way to wind down of an evening. I have been madly trying to make lots of progress with the course I enrolled in last November. 

If I power stitch, I might have it finished by tomorrow night and have an OPAM finish for February. If not, it's coming on retreat with me Friday.

FNSI- A New Project

 My friend Julie and I bought the kit to make this quilt about 4 or 5 years ago!! It was an absolute bargain at the time. We still love it.

We got together for FNSI to cut it out so we can sew it next weekend at a quilting retreat we have planned. We wanted to be able to focus while cutting this one out as the chances of buying more fabric in that range are slim after so many years.

Below, a sample of some of some of the fabrics. All French General. The one on the left is for the large outer border. It is meant to be fussy cut. But we discovered that we were not sent enough to fussy cut and centre the tree and bird design down the length of the border.

As it was Friday, we did relax over dinner and a couple of wines and didn't start cutting until 9pm. Big mistake. There is a lot of cutting in this quilt. We stopped at 12.40am for a cuppa and slice and then soldiered on.

By 3am, we stopped cutting...too weary. We decided we would not use that border fabric, but would use it for backing fabric. There were discussions about options to solve our dilemma. At 4am we decided it was bed time.

 Next morning we decided we would add an extra row of stars.That plan was shelved when we went to cut fabric for the extra stars only to find that there wasn't quite enough.

Plan B...contact the closest quilting stores for supplies...no luck there. 

Plan C.....shop on line.

So, we are now ready for our quilting weekend with our project cut out and more border fabric on its way to my letterbox.

Pop over here to see what everyone else was up to.

Friday Night With Friends

 Last night I joined the virtual sew in known as 'Friday Night With Friends'. I worked on my 'Toes In The Sand Quilt' that I have been hand quilting. 

  I have quilted about 5 or 6 flannel quilts prior to this and found the needle on the left fantastic for gliding through multiple layers of flannel with Perle 8 thread like a hot knife through butter. So I had started quilting this cotton quilt with some Gutterman hand quilting thread a largish needle, but wasn't happy with the size of  my stitches.

I asked a few posts ago what size and type of needle others use. Thanks so much for your responses.

After trying a number of needles suggested, I have settled on the needle on the right. A size 10 Piecemakers', so small by comparison. Took so long to get used to such a small needle, I felt like I had five thumbs. But I persevered and have found my quilting has slowly improved with these.

I am pretty excited to say that I am now up to row six of seven rows of triangle blocks. I started this early January and have certainly not worked on it everyday. I am surprised how quickly I have been able to quilt this by hand. It will be about 80" x 65" when finished.

 Don't forget to look here to see what everyone else was doing last night.

Have a great weekend.