More Finishes

Some things are getting finished around here. The Costume is not one of them.

I finished this top for my girlfriend.

Originally, I was going to make this quilt for her. But since I ended up not really liking that quilt, I decided that I needed to make her another one. I had an ME Friends and Flowers Jelly Roll, so I decided to make this quilt. Since my girlfriend loves green, I used a green panel, and switched out the red borders for green borders. I have to say, after looking at this picture, that I'm too happy with the green that I used for the borders. I wish I would have used a green solid, or one of the greens that shows more as a solid. Oh well. I don't think that I'm willing to rip out those borders and redo them. Plus, I'd really like to have this done by November 6, when she's coming to visit.

I also completely finished this quilt.

It's from the Atkinson Quilt Book Happy Hour, and it's the Picture This quilt pattern. AmandaJean has made a few of these quilts. (Oh. My. Goodness. Is she fantastic, or what?) I loved this pattern when I first saw it, and after making a quilt with it, I am even more in love with it. I made this top back in August, because I wanted to make a top that I could practice some quilting on. I really wanted to try this quilt motif that Amy did. However, besides not being the freaking incredible wonderful quilter that Amy is, I realized that I was using the wrong thread. I used a Guterman 50 wt. thread, and it just blended right in to the quilt. It didn't stand out like a heavier thread would have.

You can see on the right where I was trying to use that motif, and I just couldn't see it well enough to make it work (well, that's the excuse that I'm using!), so I decided to just go with regular stippling. I had also decided that I was going to use my Bernina Stitch Regulator to quilt this quilt too (I'd not used it up to this point). So, trying to do two new things at once was just too much for me.

All that being said, I really do love this quilt. I finally finished the binding on Sunday night, and it ended up being cool enough that night that I could sleep with it. I washed it on Monday, and that gave it all of its crinkly goodness. It also seems to be much more pliable than the other quilt I recently finished. I'm not sure if the weight of the thread made a difference or not.

I did the binding with leftover pieces of fabric from the quilt. I LOVE how that turned out too.

You can see the backing here, too. I used this backing because I had it. It was some fabric that I was going to get rid of, and then I thought - why not just use it! It's just a practice quilt! It kind of reminded of using a vintage sheet, so I though it would work. My girls, however, gave me sh*t a hard time about using it, because they thought it didn't match well enough. Oh well. *sigh* And I also see that there are 3 squares up there going in the same direction. I wish I had caught that, but since I'll be the one using this quilt, I think it will be just fine.