Rainbow Pinwheels Finish

Another finish, this week it’s Rainbow Pinwheels:

I’m very happy with how the quilt top turned out, especially since it is comprised almost entirely of bonus triangles I had laying around. I finished the center blocks and the first white border and thought it was too small, so I added the pieced border, another white border and finally the flower fabric border. It finishes at 44″ square, I wish it were a bit bigger but this will do. It is a good size quilt to use in a stroller or for tummy time.

I have been making so many baby girl quilts lately, I am running out of cute backings from my stash but this red polka dot print seemed to go perfectly with the front of the quilt. When I cut the quilt out of the sandwich, I even had enough backing fabric left over to use for the binding. Talk about using up every last scrap of fabric!

Once again I did an all over stipple for the quilting. As I mentioned before, I’ve been having such problems with my machine and tension lately, so the quilting isn’t as neat as I’d like it to be. The sewing machine is in the shop, hopefully it will get fixed. If you haven’t weighed in on my post about looking for a new sewing machine, please do. I’d love to hear about your sewing machines.

On My Plate

I finally managed to finish piecing together the backing for my Rainbow Pinwheels quilt after sitting on my butt for over a week. It’s nothing elaborate, just a lot of fun happy white polka dots on a red background.

Polka dots always make for great backing fabric ⚪️🔴⚪️ #quilting #quilt #fabric

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Once I baste, quilt and bind this baby I can get it sent off to Mama and baby, hopefully before baby arrives! Then I still have two more baby quilts, a boy due in July and a girl due in September. I want to finish the July one before I move. Who knows how long it will take me to get my quilting room set up in the new house?? But I’m not going to push myself too hard… if it happens, it happens.

I also received some batting and interfacing for my birthday that I can use to make a quilt from my late husband’s t-shirts. Another project I’m definitely not rushing into. I want to make absolutely sure of what I’m doing before I go ahead and cut into such precious fabric.

Instead of sewing, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading. Some people like to binge watch TV shows… I love to binge read books. I’m an extremely fast reader and I can usually finish a simple romance novel in a day, during Henry’s naps and then after bed time. So far this year I’ve read 24 books, and four of those were re-reads. If you’re interested in what I’m reading, feel free to check out my GoodReads profile. I’ve got shelves for each year, so if you go to my “Read in 2017” shelf you’ll see what I’ve read so far this year.

That’s what I’m working on this week! Visit Patchwork Times to find out what others are working on this week.

Rainbow Pinwheels Quilt Top Finish

I’ve finished the top for Rainbow Pinwheels. It’s finished at 41.5″ square and made almost exclusively with scraps with my scraps bin, except for the white borders and sashing and the flowered border. I’m so happy with how it turned out by actionac.net air conditioning repair , it’s bright and colorful, the perfect tummy time quilt for a baby girl. I even fussy cut a couple of the pieces for the second border. There’s a bicycle in there along with a frog, and a sun and a cloud.

Since it finished at less than 43″ all around I’m hoping I can find a big enough piece of yardage in my stash for the back without having to piece it. Wouldn’t that be nice!!

Thanks for reading! I’m linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it Up Friday and Busy Hands Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

Design Wall Monday March 6 2017

A lot of progress made on Rainbow Pinwheels this week. I sashed up all of the blocks, added cornerstones, and added an inner border. It was only measuring 29 inches, a bit small even if I did add another outer border, so I decided to add another border. At first I tried to use more bonus triangles, but there weren’t enough to do a border all the way around. So I decided to make this one scrappy. I still have to make the top and bottom scrappy borders, then I’ll probably add another white border, and finish with that colorful flower print as the final border. Four borders in all.

My scraps bin STILL overfloweth.

I’ve used so many scraps for this project, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at my bin. I have them separated by color inside this bin, it makes it so much easier to find what I need this way. I will probably bind the quilt with that herringbone-ish colorful fabric sitting on top in the bin. I used it to bind Meet in the Middle and I loved how it looked.

Thanks for stopping by! I’m linking up with Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday February 27 2017

I’m late, but better late than never! Butterfly Blossoms is officially off my plate, it’s all quilted and bound, I’ll be posting about that one on Friday. I’m back to working on Rainbow Pinwheels. You can see in the top center, I pieced the block with 1″ sashing. It ended up being too small, so I pieced the first block on the second row with a 1.5″ sashing. That one turned out perfectly, so I’ll go back and fix the first block. Once I add sashing to all the baby pinwheel blocks, I’ll go back and add sashing to the big blocks. I think I’ll add some cornerstones, too. Then I plan on doing at least a couple of borders to finish the top off, but I haven’t decided on the fabrics yet. One border at least will probably be white.

Thanks for stopping by! I’m linking up with Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday February 6 2017

I am working on basting the Butterfly Blossoms quilt too, but here’s what is on my design wall.

I was ready to baste and realized the batting I had was too small, so I decided to get started on an idea I had for my next quilt. Back when I was making the Hungry Little Caterpillar, Leaves and Berries and Sunburst quilts, I was cutting a lot of bonus triangles and on a whim, decided to save them. If you don’t know, bonus triangles are fabric that are left over from trimming blocks. I thought that some day I might be able to make a quilt from them.

So a few days ago I got inspired to play around with them and see what I could make. Immediately I thought that making pinwheels would be a fun way to use these up. Originally I planned on making the pinwheels more scrappy, but it looked a little messy and confused so I decided to make each pinwheel the same fabric, or as close as I could get. The big pinwheels were all made from bonus triangles from the Hungry Caterpillar quilt. The smaller ones are mostly from the Sunburst quilt, but there’s a couple from the Leaves and Berries quilt and I also dug into my scraps stash to cut a few more.

I came up with this design for the top and I think it looks pretty cute. I’m calling it Rainbow Pinwheels. I’m going to make four smaller pinwheels into a block the same size as the bigger pinwheels. I’ll probably add in some sashing and cornerstones as well. I’m also going to add at least one border, maybe two, but I don’t know what those are going to look like yet.

All of the fabric I’ve used so far I’ve counted as “out” for my stash reports, so I won’t be showing a whole lot of movement on my numbers, but that’s OK. I’m happy to put a dent in my overflowing scraps bin.

Along with the cousin that Butterfly Blossoms is for, I have another cousin expecting a baby and then I just got news that a good friend is expecting a baby, so I’ve got to get cranking on these baby quilts! Good thing these go fast. I’m also thankful I have enough of a stash that I probably won’t need to buy any fabric to finish off this quilt, or the next one.

Check out what everyone else is working on this week over at Patchwork Times and Quilting is more fun than housework.