Finished Or Not Friday: Spring Quilts and Gifts

This week I am once again joining in with those reporting their finishes along with our esteemed hostess Alycia for Finished or Not Friday!  

It's always interesting to me how projects get started or evolve.  This quilty finishing tale started back in 2014 when I made "Fabric Gal" to use to decorate my bed for Spring.  

In 2016, we gifted that quilt to my husband's convalescing aunt to brighten her hospital room.  Everyone that visited enjoyed the quilt and when she passed away we gave the quilt to her daughter.  Of course that meant I now needed another Spring quilt.  

In 2017, I purchased a "juicy" bright fabric bundle from the Turning Twenty online store.  Since this was not the usual kind of colorway I worked with, I did not immediately come up with a design to make with it.  In fact, that didn't happen until 2020 while we were stuck in our homes due to the COVID quarantine.  

We quilters were fortunate that so many quilt designers came up with new designs and quilt alongs to keep us busy while under lock down.  That year Gudrun Erla of GE Designs held a free quilt along for her new pattern "Elvira".  I was excited to participate as it also meant using my favorite Stripology ruler.  I added fabric to the bundle I had purchased to fill out the amount of fabric I needed for the project....

....then followed along and made up the top.

However with loads of other quarantine projects afoot, it sat while I debated on how to quilt it up.  

In 2023 and still without a Spring quilt for my bed,  I found in my stash what I thought was a yard of the Peach floral fabric I had used for the borders of the "Fabric Gal" quilt.  By now I was a big fan of the Fabric Cafe "3 Yard Quilts" and saw this as an opportunity to make one.  I purchased some coordinating fabrics to go with what I had and took it with me down to my MIL's in North Carolina for our annual Fall visit and mini Quilt Retreat (she is also a quilter).  

When I started cutting the fabric for the pattern I picked for it -- "Heartland" -- I realized I actually had a little more than two yards of that border fabric.  I decided that rather than make the lap size quilt that the 3 Yard patterns typically make, I could "upsize" it to a twin if I could get more of the coordinates.  I was able to find one while in NC but had to wait until I returned home to NY to get more of the second.  Before long I had doubled the basic design into a twin top!

Finished top and backing purchased on a Shop Hop while in NC.

When I didn't get around to quilting it by the end of that year,  I planned to bring it back down to my MIL's and try to quilt it on her new long arm.  We returned in May of this year for the funeral of another of her sisters.  While there I did load the quilt onto the longarm but for reasons I didn't understand at the time, I couldn't get the pattern I wanted to stitch out.  

While there, I was showing a friend of my MIL a picture of the "Elvira" top that "Heartland" was now replacing.  She really liked the bright colors of it and since she was in the process of finalizing a move to retire to my MIL's town, I decided that I would bring it back down when we returned to visit in the Fall and quilt it up as a surprise housewarming gift for her.  

In the meantime, after returning back home with the unquilted "Heartland" top, I lucked up on receiving information about a "Free Motion Quilting Summit" being held in August.  Adria Goode who was one of the presenters showed her "Big Flower" stitch pattern and I just knew it would work for "Heartland".  With many other projects on my plate, I didn't start quilting it until late September, getting it about half way done.  

I had to break from working on it because we were now scheduled to return to my MIL's in early October.  While there I finally got the "Elvira" quilting going.  I pieced together a backing that included a strip of scraps leftover from piecing the top and included a label.  I then picked out a large continuous line flower stitch pattern to use to quilt it.

I went with the simpler Blossom E2E pattern.

Luckily with a lot of new lessons learned on this trip about working with the longarm,  I was able to get it it all stitched out!

And before you know it the quilt was finished!

Two days before we left I trimmed and bound it and it was ready for gifting along with another little gift that can be seen in this post!

On our return home it was now time to also get the "Heartland" quilt finished.  I worked on that this week and now it too is finished!  

As a throw back to the "Fabric Gal" quilt, I still had some of the panel fabric I used for the label of that quilt so made a similar label for the new "Heartland" one! 

Previous and New Labels!

I look forward to when I can use this one in the Spring!

I also look forward to checking out what everyone else has made up this week over at Alycia's for Finished or Not Friday!  There's always good stuff to see so be sure to check it out yourself!