Some Updates

As promised, I have some photos to share.  I told you about my practicing feathers….. I still haven’t got the quilt bound but I will share with you my feathers.  I rarely show close up of my quilting because in my opinion it leaves a lot to be desired, but I’ve been told I’m my own worst critic – and I guess it’s not horrible, so here you go:

Doing the circles gives me an opportunity to make feathers going many different directions.  I find with larger feathers I am not very consistent.  This is a large ‘block’ at 16”.  I need to make myself several size circle templates so I can get some registration marks to help with my consistency of size.  I put ‘vanes’ in the center of the outer feathers – not sure I like it or not – maybe if the feathers were more consistent,….

A little better here – still need work on the larger size feathers.  I did just straight line feathers in the borders using a different technique – if you look top and bottom, you’ll see the feathers are going opposite directions.  This was more practicing making feathers in different directions.

I told you about this quilt here.   This shows the blocks laid out, it has since been assembled.  I’m undecided about a border fabric.Here’s a bit of a close up.  I thought about a navy as there is some navy in the darker print.  But I think it would be a bit over whelming….. I’m also thinking of just a very narrow (maybe 1/2”) navy with a 4” border in white….. And then again, I might not border it all.  But I really love the colors in this quilt, so I’m thinking this is going to be a keeper for me.

These are the placemats  where I learned a valuable lesson – Don’t use straight grain binding on curved edges!   Looking at the mat on the left, you can see where the mat curls up a bit whereas the mat on the right lays nice and flat.  I just used 2½” strips, stitching and flipping (quilt as you go), trimmed to 15” X 17” then just used a dinner plate to cut the curved corners… quick and easy and most of all I used SCRAPS!

And talking about strips….. a fellow blogger was kind enough to send me some “scrap bags of the month” from Keepsake Quilting.  I took one and cut it into 2½” strips so I could do one of those “Jelly Roll Race” quilts.  I wanted a wider quilt so I added wide borders to the side, but leaving the top and bottom borders at 2½” to better blend with the  ‘body’ of the quilt:

I will be sending this quilt, as well as the ‘feather practice’ quilt to Michelle as per this post by Bonnie Hunter to help with the fire victims in Colorado.

I am still embroidering “Sea Birds” and I really think they’re cute.  Not sure they’re a perfect match for the panels I plan on using, but as most of you know “I am no perfectionist”

I wish you all a very safe and happy 4th of July and if you are a reader living outside the U.S. – I wish you a safe and happy week.

Katie