Year End Finishes and Charity Sew-In

New Year's Eve found me finishing up two quilts, both with purple bindings.

Top before quilting

The largest was a queen Trip Around the World variation for my nephew and his wife. The design started with Bonnie Hunter's "Many Trips" block, and morphed into two simple blocks, and then just sewing it row by row instead of blocks.

It consists of 961 4" squares. I laid out all the blocks on my long studio table plus an ironing board, stacked each row up with a row label (31 rows each with 31 squares).  After stitching each row I checked each  against the printout and was pleased not to have any mistakes. 

All batiks for the top, all from my stash. The backing was also from my stash.  Finished size is 108" x 108".  Almost 20 yards of fabric used in this quilt!

Close up after quilting

 

The second finish was a One Block Wonder quilt. I had been gifted the fabric, and wasn't sure how to use it. I started looking at layouts on Pinterest and liked the swirling types of designs. This is a 60" x 60" quilt made from 3 yards of fabric. With more yardage a stronger spiraling design could have been achieved. My alignment of the repeats is off a bit, though the designs are small so there still is a somewhat symmetrical effect. It was fun to make and I have purchased a large floral design in blues and greens for another design.



 


Fabric before cutting



Finished Top
 

 

Close-up of quilting

Quilting was in the ditch and parallel to each side of the triangles, basted on the longarm and quilted on a Janome sewing machine. My walking foot guide wasn't quite wide enough to get to the center. The backing was a piece of fabric given to me by the same person.

Yesterday I attended my local group's Charity Sew-In, and I mostly worked on finishing up some of my charity projects. The binding for this little charity quilt was done by machine (also purple!), several burp cloths were finished, and a backing pieced for the 16-patch colorblock quilt the group had assembled at our last sew-in. I also worked on assembling blocks into rows for a 16-patch and Hourglass quilt.

Little Labels Charity Quilt