WIP Wednesday: Get 'Er Done

I have several quilts in progress right now. Last night I finished binding the red and white quilt destined for my husband's stepmother's mother for Christmas. With the time change it gets dark around here so early that I don't know how I'm going to get in a photo shoot with some good natural light!

I also just have to do the hand stitching of the binding of the yellow, white and grey baby quilt for my neighbour who is expecting a baby girl on December 31st. I did straight line "echo" quilting along the tumbler shapes, pausing at each "bend" to lift my walking foot and rotate the quilt. It has a pleasant end result that I'm quite pleased with and I hope the mom loves it. Hopefully I'll be finishing that up this week.

All these greys and yellows are nice together! I used a white thread for the quilting.

I also pulled out my last "2014" project that I really want to get finished. Two years ago my oldest friend got married and I was her maid of honour. I came up with the idea (thanks to Pinterest) of a guest book quilt for her baby showers (she had two). I had no intention of being the one who made this quilt, mind you, as both the bride's mother and aunt are very experienced and talented (though more traditional) quilters. So the bride's aunt prepared 6.5" squares with freezer paper on the back to stabilize them, and after both her showers the blocks were sent to her. Where they sat. And sat. And sat.

I understand that sometimes you want to prioritize other projects, but when we hit the 1 1/2 year mark and my friend now also had a baby I knew I wanted to act. So I asked the bride if she wouldn't mind rescuing the blocks so I could put it together. And then I immediately abandoned the aunt's vision (a snowball quilt) because some people had signed too close to the corners for it to work. And then I went even further off-script because, since there were no other fabrics picked out, I suggested to the bride (now long since married and with a daughter of her own) that it might be fun to make the quilt in her wedding colours: black and white with a touch of red. The bride is also crazy about damask fabric, so I picked some up. I did a consult with a quilty friend, A, and then finally put together the quilt layout:

The sizes here look wonky because they are just loosely laid out on the floor, but now that it is stitched together in rows and I have the first two rows attached it looks pretty killer.

I used Kona Black for the solid and interjected that damask fabric here and there for variation. I since have ordered some Kona Poppy because none of the reds I had in my stash were a) a good fit pattern wise or b) enough to do a border around the entire quilt. The Poppy is on the way in the mail and I plan to do a thin 2 or 3" border of that, followed by a 3-4" inch black border. I think I'm going to use up the rest of the fabric and interject some patterned reds on the back in a simple checkerboard layout that uses that black, white and red since I have 6.5" squares left over of the white used for the signing and of the damask.

If I get this quilt done before midnight on New Year's Eve I will consider myself in great shape. I just can't forget that I also have other, non-quilt projects that I have vowed to get done by Christmas. Does anyone else feel on track?

Lynn

Linking up with Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday!