APQ 2016 February UFO - Update!

As predicted, I needed all 29 days in February to meet my deadline.  Of course, a trip to Florida was thrown into the mix with very short notice. 

But, I finished my UFO! 

 

This was a class project that I took at the Quilter's Barn around 2003, if memory serves me correctly. It is the Lasagna pattern from the Spring Cleaning book by Atkinson Designs.  Lots of good scrap busting projects in this book!  When this project was chosen as the UFO for February,  I did not realize that the top was mostly complete except for the three borders, but they were already cut.  I needed to cut the backing to size though.  Now most folks, including me, thought this would be an easy, peasy project to finish!  Well, not so much! 

 

Here's what I learned from this quilt:

 

I need to remember for the next time that I need a larger surface if I want to spray baste a larger quilt.  This one ended up being 60" x 70" and my work table is only 48" x 60".  A bit to small for what I needed to do.  I started out on the table but eventually moved to the floor.  I still prefer to spray baste, but not on my knees, and not on my cement garage floor!  I must shop for a larger table! 

 

As a rule, I don't do bias bindings.  I think I have only been successful at making a few one so far.  Since this was a Christmas project and there really wasn't much I needed to do to complete it, I thought I would throw in a level of difficulty and make a bias binding from red and white striped fabric to give it a candy cane look.  Before I cut any fabric, I watched some many, many You Tube videos and looked through my reference sheets.  I finally bit the bullet and made the first cut!  I was surprised at how well it turned out on the first attempt.  My confidence got a big boost so I may try this again soon! 

 

 

Finally, in my attempt to do more machine quilting on my smaller projects, I thought long and hard on how to quilt this project.  I resisted doing stitch in the ditch since I wanted the quilting to break up all the linearity of the quilt.  I had recently taken a machine quilting class and learned, among other things, how to do cross hatch quilting.  I thought this would enhance the horizontal and vertical seams.  I used my walking foot on my newish Bernina along with the stitching guides to make my quilting lines 2 inches apart.  I cross hatched the quilt from edge to edge.  I was pleased at the result so now I have another quilting technique in my tool box!  I attached the binding by machine as well, using a decorative stitch.  I need to practice on this technique for future projects.  I love the hand stitched binding technique but I was running out of runway for this project.  It will do for a quilt I will have out for two weeks a year. 

 

The UFO for March will be my lighthouse wall hanging.  The top is done.  The backing is already cut.  I need to make the binding.  Then the top can be sandwiched and quilted.  That's as far as I have gotten on this one.  I would like to say it should not be a difficult finish, but I don't want to jinx myself! 

 

2 UFOs done, 10 to go! 

 

Stay tuned!