A tight bind!

Oh doesn't that title sound so dramatic?  Well there are no tight binds at my house, but there is a lot of BINDING happening.

I got home yesterday and sat out in the backyard with the girls. I was on my own for dinner (OK - I never have to cook), but no one was making me dinner so I had to forage for myself.  Such a hardship especially when there were leftovers in the fridge. Well, I think I mentioned at one point that I was struggling to get through one of the earlier Jennifer Chiaverini (Elm Creek Quilts) books.  I'm reading the Cross Country Quilters (her third book) and so engrossed that before I knew it, it was 7 PM.  Yikes - I still have a phone call to make and I've a lot of work to do!  Jennifer has veered away from the Elm Creek series and is taking a different route with her books, focusing on historical settings but still to do with textiles - like Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker.

One thing I will say about Jennifer's Elm Creek series - they hit the nail on the head. How we buy our stash, how we interact with each other, how we learn, how we teach - the real deal.  But this particular one is about a group that meets at quilt camp and there's drama (when is there not drama in a quilter's life?).  It's great, but there I am last night (reading before bed) with 21 pages left to finish the book and I couldn't read another page. I'll finish it off this morning.

But after my phone call, I got to work and between last night and this morning, this is what I got done.

Two bindings - done!

 Granted, the strips were cut and pinned together, but not sewn. Now they are done and they NEED to be on finished quilts and in FED EX boxes on Monday.

I emptied my way over flowing scrap basket and was able to finish off one more pet mat.

Pet mat  -  DONE!

I measured and cut two pieces of yardage for the backing for this quilt. The backing is now sewn together and this quilt is ready to be quilted. There's no rush - it's mine.

Backing done !

I sewed strips and strips and strips of this brown fabric together. The strips were cut and pinned. They are the borders for those constructions quilts.  Hopefully there is enough here for all the borders. I do have more strips cut because that fabric will also be the binding for all four quilts.  This is one of my UFOs (February I think). I haven't forgotten those UFOs and if it kills me - I will get them all done by the end of the year. But I had better start hussling!

Border strips - joined!

 Then I had another quilt top that was sitting there.  I had leftover fabric, none large enough on their own to make the backing for the quilt. BUT, I joined the leftover blocks and the different leftover pieces and got a great backing for this quilt.  It's also ready for quilting. No rush on this one.

Another quilt ready to be quilted

I had a little quilt sitting on the cutting table and it needed a backing. There was a piece of this fabric leftover that was the perfect size - now this little quilt is also ready for quilting.  I hope to show you more of this little quilt tomorrow.

Another small quilt ready to be quilted

Out of this fabric collection (Silent Night) by Northcott, I made two quilts. One went to a magazine, the prototype is the one with the funky pieced backing above. I also made a small table runner and you'll get to see that on QUILTsocial this coming week.  I'll be posting the links - there are some great tips and ideas regardless of whether you're in the market for a sewing machine!  The background ,the binding and now the backing for that small quilt are also from the leftovers.

And this is all that's officially leftover!

Leftovers

There will be more leftovers once the three items remaining to be quilted get quilted, but these leftovers went in the blue scrap box! DONE!

I didn't get the batting made for the quilt that I need to quilt this morning, but I have the four pieces picked out and will be sewing them together shortly. And I have to load the backing and the top.

That was a productive couple of hours!  I've said it before, but I used to procrastinate at so many of these steps - making the binding, sewing the binding on or loading on the long arm. Why?  No idea - it's not like it's hard. But the more that I do, I don't even contemplate that ironing that binding is a pain. Nope - I just do it.

I did notice the other day when I was finishing up another quilt that once it's quilted, it's still a long way from completion.  You have to trim the quilt, sew on the binding (make it if you haven't already). Make and attach the sleeve and sew on a label.  All of that is piddly boreing stuff, but has to be done. I'm getting better at it - most of what I work on these days gets completed (except maybe a business card attached instead of an acutal sewn on label), but there are a lot  of quilts in my studio that just need the sleeve to be finished sewn down or the label (that's already made) to be sewn down.  I'm hoping to get back to that kind of thing at my brief visit with the Monday ladies. It would be nice to get these off the UFO list and into the finished list!

On that note, I've a few errands to do today, finish my book, a TON of quilting to do. But I have NO commitments. I don't have to be anywhere, I don't have appointments - it's a "free" weekend. Yeah!!!!

Have a super day!!!!


Ciao!