Fourth Quarter 2016 Finish Along -- First Finish!

Between lots of extra walks in the woods to enjoy fall in Northeast Ohio, I managed to cross the first finish off my fourth quarter 2016 Finish Along list.   

Wild grapes growing up through a sassafras tree

It involved finishing a quilt pieced and almost finished by our church organist's wife who passed away last winter.  He found it while going through her things and brought it to me to see what needed to be done to finish it and if I would do it.  On first look, it seemed to just need the binding but it wasn't long before I discovered that the borders were not quilted -- more work than I had anticipated for sure!

And she had hand quilted it.  I only hand quilt for myself, no one else.
Plus the quilt was much bigger than I typically make -- 92" by 108" -- with a heavier batting than I use.  After a conversation with Jim, it was agreed that I could machine quilt the borders -- whew!!

There was some procrastinating brought on by the size and weight of the quilt -- it engulfed my machine table completely!  But in the end, it went more smoothly than I was anticipating.  It was an advantage that I only had the borders to do.

I did a simple design in the white setting triangles -- the quilting of the interior of the quilt is simple cross hatching.   

I stayed with the simple theme for the border -- straight lines perpendicular to the edge.  As you can see the quilting disappears into the fabric.  It would have been good practice with a fancier design but the idea of wrestling with the bulk of the quilt discouraged that idea. 

In the end, it took about 8 hours to add the quilting.   The quilt pattern is called Trellis and was designed by In The Beginning fabrics for this fabric . . . or was it the other way around?

Here it is folded in quarters and centered on my double bed -- it's huge!!

I have to smile when I see quilters neatly folding or rolling the binding -- as you can see I don't do that -- just a pile on the floor to my right.

I stitched the binding completely by machine and it took two hours to wrestle it around -- bonus was that I had to clean off my machine table before I started! 

And here it is.  Folded up and ready to take to Jim on Sunday morning. 

The delivery didn't illicit much of a reaction other than to ask if he could bring the "other one" next Sunday. 

 Other one?!?

How do we get ourselves into these obligations?

Hope you have some stitching time every day this week!!

Mary