It's Done!

I got back last night from an extremely busy trip to Beijing, so there has been no quilting going on here for the last week. It was a very productive trip, though, and I got to see lots of good friends. I brought DS with me, even though all his friends would be in school. Luckily, he made some new friends, got to see some of the old ones, and had a good time until the second to the last day, when he got sick. He was okay for traveling last night, though, and we are both happy to be relaxing at home today.

This morning I was ready to get quilting, and I finished up the edges on Not Quite Amish that needed some extra quilting. I am not all that pleased with how the borders turned out, but it is done! I am sure my family won't mind. Here is its:

The full quilt.
I love how the "block" sections turned out. They are actually four blocks set together. It is a great quilt to make because it has so few pieces in the blocks and they come together really quickly. You could also set the blocks like pinwheels. Someday I will make one like that, too, but I am out of many of the fabrics I used, now.

The block detail and the quilting from the back. It seems the quilting always photographs better from the back! I actually like to use the back of the quilt to see how my quilting designs are evolving and to figure out where I will need more quilting or which motif will work best.

Binding Finished

I finished sewing on the binding on Not Quite Amish last night, and this morning i have been trying to fix the gaps that I left at the outside of the border. On the short border gaps I have tried two things. I just got Diane Gaudinsky's machine quilting book -- it is fantastic -- and on one end I decided to try her "bouncing banana motif" after outlining the design a couple of times. I love the motif, but the end result is too dense. I probably could have made the bananas bigger, but that didn't occur to me until it was too late. It did flatten out that end of the quilt, though!

On the other short end of the quilt I did some looser outlining of the motif and then did a loose McTavishing. I am happier with that result, so I will do it on the remaining two borders. That does mean that one border will look quite different from the others, but my feeling at the moment is that this a quilt for the family, and they will not care that it is not perfect! It is a bit disappointing because I really love how the top turned out, but I feel I have not enhanced it with the quilting. I love how I did the blocks, but a better and quieter choice for the sashing and border would have turned out much better, I think. A learning experience, I guess. If this quilt lasts a hundred years, people will either look at it and say, "What was she thinking?", or they will find the eccentric choices charming. It certainly has the "Dorky Homemade Quilt Look"!

My realizations about my choice of quilting motifs has made me really admire the author of "The Quilting Makes the Quilt." This quilt was actually really easy to put together, so it would not be difficult to make another one just like it and quilt it differently. But as much as I love the design, I cannot imagine making another, much less five like in "The Quilting Makes the Quilt."

I won't have quilt pictures to post today, so I will add some dog pictures and some links to my favorite dog-related web sites. The first is Goodpaws, a wonderful community where one can find dog lovers who have faced any problems you may be facing with your pets, both furry and non-furry, and are more than happy to share experiences and make suggestions. I usually only pay attention to the dog related sections, but there are sections for cats, reptiles, rodents and so forth. The people are friendly and love to share stories about their pets. It is a great place for pet lovers to hang out. The same can be said of the second site, The Family Dog, Inc. , and in fact there is a lot of overlap in the communities. Run by Sarah Wilson and Brian Kilcommons, both outstanding dog trainers, it is also a site where you can get practical guidance from a renowned dog trainer as well as find friends who share your enthusiasm for dogs. I found the site when I was having a lot of problems with our dog, and Sarah's willingness to guide us over the Internet was invaluable. I also had the privilege to take two classes with her (too bad I couldn't bring our dog!) and they were fantastic. I only wish I lived near them and could participate in more classes. The links are to the main pages of the sites so you can see all the resources available, but the message boards are wonderful.

Here is Sally helping pick up laundry around the house. It is easier training her to help pick it up then training the family to put it in the basket! She does sometimes get creative and pull things out of the basket, bring them you and put them in the basket again, just so you will give her a treat.

Hmmm...This is going to take longer than I had thought.

I am about half way through binding my "Not Quite Amish" quilt (Or, "Still Not Amish" or another variation as I can't decide on the name). I had hoped I would be able to share a picture soon, but it looks like that is not to be. When I decided on the quilting motif for the sashing, I didn't think things through properly, and when I got to the borders I realized the motif isn't wide enough for the border. Originally I thought it would be relatively easy to extend it to fill the area, but in practice, it didn't work at all. The resulting space is too narrow to add another half motif and have it still look good, but too wide to leave unquilted. No matter, I thought, I'll just quilt some parallel lines to fill in that area. Oops, big mistake. After finishing the quilting and squaring up the quilt, those parallel lines seem to wander to and away from the binding like nobody's business. They are a disaster. Luckily, I only did one or two lines, thinking I would fill in more if needed. I am either going to have to pick them all out or come up with a fill design that will cover them up! Argh! A dense filler design would probably work, but it will tend to make the quilt stiff, at least until it is well washed. I am using Warm and Natural batting, which I like, and which is the only one I can get (a topic for another post, I think), but I need something more drapable. Or else I have to wash my quilts about 5 times each to get them softened up, and I am not that fond of laundry.

Since I can't share pictures of Not Quite Amish, I will share the small wall hangings made with the leftover blocks from my Not Amish quilts. For the Almost Amish Quilt I used a lot of (to my mind) less traditional filler motifs and practiced my McTavishing. This was all done before getting the book and video, so it is just a rough approximation of McTavishing at best. For this wallhanging, I used a very lacy design in the block and McTavishing in the background.

Unfortunately, the lacy design is totally lost in the batiks. It was good practice, though. For the second one, I went the other direction and did feathers in the block and left the background empty. Looks like it could use some more quilting in the background from the photo, though! Too late, it has already been given away.