Thanks for the weekend and hello to my virtual quilting friends.
I've been working on my project Aunt Debbie Bleeds Blue over the last few weekends. I wasn't sure if I'd still be working on it this weekend or not, but gone it done last week, took it's picture yesterday, and today's task is to box it for mailing. Overall, I'm happy with this project for being a college sports themed quilt. The front is so strong, I made the back easier to take for non-game days! I've been trying to improve my quilting skills, I feel I did ok with this. I started by "stabilizing" with serpentine quilting following the fan arcs and echoing the rick rack. Then I filled in the larger areas with free hand free motion quilting in a large chunky meander. I did good in terms of not crossing lines, my arcs are generally smooth and not pointy. I used a yellow thread on top and a blue thread on the back and am happy with my tension, etc. If I had a long arm, I would have used white thread top and bottom and done a floral edge to edge so it was sort of like a lace overlay -- but I don't and I didn't feel I had the skills to achieve that finish.
For this weekend, I've begun work on this year's Bonnie Hunter mystery -- or at least I'm making a back and binding for the project now. The actual project starts after Thanksgiving, on the next (special) VQW. Not the way I usually work (starting with the back), but it's keeping me busy. First goals for this weekend are to piece the back and at least make the binding segments I need, if not get it completed.
After that, my Froggy Beach project's back is up for some work. I had designed my project and the next day I found the perfect piece of fabric for backing at the thrift store. But then I enlarged the top and somehow the back didn't get bigger... now the back is pretty much exactly the same size as the top and I don't like putting them together with that close a tolerance, so I figured out a way to extend the back.