Ring Me Finish

It doesn't feel like I've made very many quilts this year, and I haven't. I've made four wallhanging-sized quilts, but this is the first big finish. "Ring Me" (because I can't think of a better name) is an adaptation of Amanda Jean Nyberg's quilt from her book No Scrap Left Behind. It's 70" X 82".

I managed to coerce DH outside, in between rainfalls, to hold up the quilt for about 20 seconds to snap a few pictures. This is the best photo, and shows off - to the right of the quilt - the glorious Bismarck palm in our front yard. Those bay windows on the left are my sewing room.

Ring Me, 70" X 82"

I'm pleased with my decision to quilt concentric rings across the quilt, though I thought it would never end. The quilt has 49 full-size ring units, and 22 partial-ring units along the sides. Each unit is six rings. Whew. But who's counting?

The top quilting thread is white 40-weight YLI, with light gray 50-weight Aurifil on the back.

I appreciate everyone's suggestions for removing color bleeding in several places where one particular raspberry-colored, hand-dyed fabric stained the white background. I'll be trying a few of your ideas.

That black and white striped Riley Blake fabric makes a good binding, don't you think? Usually I sew striped binding on the bias, so it looks like a barber pole (Do you even know what that is?), but this time I wanted the angularity of boxy-looking binding to mimic the pieced solids.

This is the status of quilting on my selvage quilt, though it's difficult to see. I am using 50-weight Aurifil thread and a low curve ruler (and Bernina ruler foot) to stabilize all the pieced and selvage areas before I begin big stitch hand quilting in the white squares.

I'm using about 18 different thread colors to match each selvage unit. While using the needle threader to change out a thread color, the threader stuck in the needle's eye and started making a noise and vibrating. I quickly turned off the machine, and just as quickly the entire needle threader sprung apart into pieces.

I learned from my friendly Bernina dealer, Sharky's, that a needle threader isn't warrantied (I bought the machine last November), and that they keep replacement threaders on hand for $34. It's easy to swap out that piece of light gray plastic, so I'll be doing that myself. Darn it anyway.

Still, I'm lovin' this machine, especially for ruler quilting. I made a video of myself using The Low Curve ruler by Amy of AmyQuilts.com and quadruple sped it up. I really, really wish I could do ruler work this quickly! The video includes repositioning the fabric and ruler, and removing basting pins.

I expect to finish machine quilting this week, and hopefully start big stitch hand quilting. 

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I'm teaching my Modern Wedge Quilt workshop from 9:00 am to 3:30 in a member-to-member workshop for Quilting Guild of The Villages. The workshop is limited to 18 people due to space, but thus far only 11 have registered... out of more than 1,200 members of Quilting Guild of The Villages! I'm surprised the class isn't full, but maybe $25 is too expensive. Or quilters aren't into making a modern design?

?? Hmm 💭 Linda