I was on a roll with the Dancing 9 Patch top, so I kept going and not only got the top finished, but I also have the backing made. I have a huge pile of unquilted tops, so one of my goals this year is to try and quilt each top as it's finished. Sometimes quilts need to sit for awhile before quilting to figure out what will look best or just because you are so sick of the top by then that you can't stand to look at it for one more second LOL. I'm still excited about the Dancing 9 Patch top, so I want to strike while the iron is hot. I have plenty of batting on hand, so I just need to get that cut and the quilt basted so I can start the quilting.
Here is the finished top followed by the quilting design that I have decided on. It really is true that if you practice a design over and over by drawing it on paper, that WILL translate to quilting your quilt. I did the same thing when I was trying to learn an allover swirl quilting design and now I'm trying it with another design. I've seen this one referred to as headbands and mussels and I'm sure there are plenty of other names for it as well. I get huge pieces of packing paper in with my fabric shipments and I realized last week that they would be perfect for practicing doodling allover quilting designs.
The finish I mentioned came in the form of sewing down the binding on this small quilt that I pieced in 2015 and quilted last year. It was one of them that got the swirl quilting. It's a disappearing 9 patch pattern. I got the entire binding sewn down in about 2 hours of our 3 hours of road time going to and from Fargo for our flooring. I was shocked at how fast it went and realized that quilts with batik binding seem to take me much longer to sew down as the tighter weave makes it more difficult to push the needle through, even with the use of a thimble. But I will still use my beloved batiks :-).
I have also been slogging along with updating my UFO lists and creating a detailed list in a notebook with all of the steps/materials needed to complete the project. One of the quilts in progress was a pineapple quilt. It's hard to really call it a quilt in progress when all it consisted of was 6 pineapple quilt blocks barely started. I do still have a large pineapple quilt on my "must make" list, but in the spirit of getting something done with these barely started blocks right now, I decided to finish them all and make a small table runner out of them. I got 5 of the 6 done before I called it quits last night. Digging through bags of scraps for just the right pieces was so. much. fun. Now I actually do want to start a large pineapple quilt lol. But I will wait on that until I put a bigger dent in that pile of quilt tops to be quilted as well as other UFOs. Pictured below are a couple of blocks in progress, the five finished blocks and my piles of scraps.
Finally, on a quick note about quilt shop business, it's the time of the month that our latest Fabric Club selections are posted. We currently have three clubs - a Fat Quarter Club, a One Third Yard Club and starting this month, a Half Yard Club. In each case, you get six coordinated batik fabrics in the cut size applicable to the club you are in. This month we have grays and turquoises and the fabric selections are below.
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