Challenge Quilts

I have not finished my quilts.

The three quilts that are completely finished.

After feeling really dissapointed with myself yesterday when I knew they wouldn't be finished I changed my attitude. I am now really pleased. I have finished three quilts and almost finished two more.

My almost finished quilts. One requires binding and the other I am still stitching the ricrac on. At present I am doing almost one side of ricrac a night and need to stitch both sides of the ricrac so there are a few nights stitching there!

One that isn't finished I pieced alot of it in the challenge and the other that is almost finished has had extra work in it - frills and ricrac. So these have been more work than normal. But in spite of that I have stuck with a project and followed to the end in a short time. For me this is big. I usually flit about form one thing to another not finishing much. Now I have the experience and the confidence that I can stick with something and finish it. Hopefully you will be seeing alot more of this in the future!

Swell quilt is ready to quilt

Now that the Swell Jellystone quilt top is together I have it now basted, the pics below are before I smoothed and basted. I am glad it is finally together, I was getting sick of block placement in the end. There was one block that wouldn't sit right, so I made up another block from the left over partial blocks and the troublesome block was replaced.
I really don't know why, maybe I rushed the piecing too much, but the quilt top didn't sit as flat as they usually do and this one gave me a bit of grief when basting. It was the borders, something I have done with piecing of these. It is basted now and we'll see later on tonight how it quilts up.



The 'bitsa' block. Doesn't look too different.

Another problem I ran into.

My batting wasn't wide enough. The batting I had set aside to use was actuallynot bought to make this quilt, it was more like an off cut. I ummed and ahhed over this for about ten minutes then, after consulting with my quilt counsel, made the executive decision that I would carry on quilting and trim the borders back once quilted.

quilting and piecing

I was up late last night trying to finish quiting Sweet Bliss but when it got to after midnight I had to go to bed. So I finished it off this morning before breakfast. Today I have stitched the binding on and got the ruffle ready to gather. A job for tonight and tomorrow.

Those curves in the scalloped border are a little awkward in the V but hopefully I have done a good enough job that it looks ok.

I have started to piece some more of Swell Jellystone quilt today. I now have all the blocks together and need to trim these, then join them. This quilt is my 5th quilt in

Strawberry Lemonade bound and in use already!

I just finished binding Strawberry Lemonade and it is already put to good use, keeping one of my daughters snuggly and warm!

I didn't quilt this quilt for the challenge but it had been starting to collect dust with my putting off binding it, thanks again for your challenge Peg!

Cinnamon Pie all finished!

last night I stayed up late to finish stitching tebinding on Cinnamone Pie, very gratifying having it finally finished!
This quilt has been exceptionally long in the finishing as I had it half basted by hand before numerous feet used it as a mat. So it sat aside until I had pracitised basting on smaller quilts. Peg's challenge happened at the right time for me, though I have a couple of quilts that need to be quilted but am without batting for them. oh well - next time!

Linda at http://www.all-stitched-up.blogspot.com is having a sewing/project bag/bucket swap. She is accepting bloggers into the swap until approx the end of July and parcels have to be posted by Sept 12th. She has posted sample type pictures on her blog, lots of lovely ideas there!

Pictures!

I only have to quilt in the blocks now of Cinnamon Pie.

The Purple Butterfly quilt all quilted and bound!

Sweet Janice done in Bliss by Sue Zipkin. These fabrics are gorgeous, and there is more bright colours to come on this quilt when I put the ruffle, jumbo ricrac and binding on, just wait and see - it will be stunning!

Oops!