To Do Tuesday -- A Day Late!

I'm linking up again with Carol's Quilt Schmilt followers for the weekly "To Do Tuesday" check-in report.  

Today, I'm looking at what's on deck for the coming week to continue working on patrotic projects for "Red, White & June" as well as a project pulled out for a UFO challenge.

Finishing Red, White and Blue Cross Stitch and Quilt Projects 

Last week I managed to FFO "Patriotic Parade" which I discussed in Sunday's "Slow Sunday Stitching" post.

This week I want to finish "United We Stand" which is another patriotic themed cross stitch project.  It is to be finished as a simple pillow.  The pattern designer Primrose Cottage finished theirs with a pom-pom trim.  I don't have any of that but there is a decorative edge finish I've long wanted to try and will do so on this little project as a first stab at it.  

I had seen this technique in a back issue of Quilter's Newsletter (March 2004 issue) and have long wanted an opportunity to try it on a quilt.  Certainly trying a sample of it on this little pillow that will finish at three inches square would be easier, LOL!   The kit I had purchased for the "Parade" project may play a part in that:  since I framed "Parade" rather than finish it as a pillow,  I think I'll use the backing fabric that came in the kit and cut it into the bias strips I'd need to try this decorative edge finish.

This week I also want to try finishing up my "Seeds of Glory" pillow cover.  

Some time ago when I finished a cover for the same pillow form I will use here, I had stitched a small flange of fabric between the front, back and center band around the pillow.  

The post about that finish is here.

When I was considering how to finish this new pillow cover,  I had originally planned to try adding  traditional corded piping around the edges.  

You can watch Susan Cleveland demo this tool here.

However, once I decided that I'd try the "Piped Shell Edging" for the little  "United" cross stitch pillow,  if successful I'll try it again on this larger quilted pillow.  If I can do that then I'll be confident that if I ever want to do this on the edge of a quilt,  I'll definitely be able to do it.  I even have a quilt in mind that I could try it on in the future!       

"Alaska" Start Delayed!

The big project I had hoped to start last week was Edyta Sitar's "Alaska" in a Red, White and Blue colorway.   I was going to run a test of making the blocks for it but unfortunately I ran into quite a few snags!  My plan is to make the blocks using the Marti Michell Kaleidoscope ruler I have.  

A review of her Kaleidoscope book provided the good news that I can use the ruler I have to make the blocks but only some of them.  I have her "Large" ruler but the blocks that are made up of multiple smaller triangles would need triangle units smaller than my ruler can make unless I make larger blocks for the quilt overall.  

That in turn led to the question: how big do I want this quilt to be and for what use?  I just fell in love with the design and coloring and was so focused on aquiring the fabric that I never really questioned the size of the quilt as patterned.  It is patterned at 71-1/2" square but now I'm not sure if I want a quilt that size.  Even so, the blocks I'd need to make for that size or for a smaller quilt will still require the "Small" version of this  ruler.  Fortunately,  I was able to find a few places that still have it and have ordered one which gives me a little more time to settle the quilt size issue.  Of course, there is also the option of making an even larger queen-size quilt.  But for that I'd still have to settle the block size issue and then check my stash to confirm I have enough fabric to do that. 

Speaking of the stash:  another complication that arose was when I pulled out the storage box with the stash for this and was confronted with another issue:

In the box I had the receipts showing what I had purchased for the project.  I noted how much of the background fabric I had ordered which seemed like way more than I needed for the original design.  However,  I have far less than what's invoiced!  Did I decide to use the rest for another project ?!?  If so, for the life of me I don't remember doing so or if I did what project I might have moved it to.  Sigh!  I've only found one source for that print but do not want to commit to ordering more until I've decided on the quilt size and block issue since I might already have enough.  Then again, background fabric is always useful so I could just bite the bullet and get more anyway.  Decisons, decisions! 

I did manage to cut some scraps to make up blocks to test working with the ruler.  These are the block pieces needed for the two styles of blocks used in the design.  

The smaller block is the size I'd use for the original pattern.  The larger block is the other style of block I need to make for the project but this is the smallest size I can make of it with the ruler I have.  I am also going to try it by making the large diamonds in that block the two ways you can do them:  either pieced of two small triangles or cut as one large diamond.  So when I sew these up this week that will give me an idea of how the assembly of the blocks work.  

So it looks like this week will be the testing phase and maybe next week -- once I've made the final decision on the quilt size -- I can actually get to work on the actual blocks for the project! 

UFO:  Quilting Decided Now To Layer

The other project on my list for this week is my "Modern Bohemia UFO" for the "Mission: UFO" challenge on the Sugar and Sand Quilt Company website.  

Last week I looked at it for a couple of days and came up with what I think is a simple yet custom quilting plan.  The top has blocks that are 12, 9, 6 and 3 inches.  In many cases the same size blocks are grouped together.  

So after layering, the plan is to stabilize stitch the whole top by outlining the block sections.  This means all of the twelve inch blocks will be individually outlined but all of the three inch blocks are together in sections of three to five blocks.  Most of the six inch blocks are paired although a few are either individual or in sets of three or four that are adjacent to each other.  The nine inch blocks for the most part are individual but there are a few that are paired.  

For stitching over the blocks, all of the blocks smaller than twelve inches will be quilted with various straight line patterns.  I want to do cross-hatching across the three inch blocks and either horizontal or vertical matchstick quilting over the nine inch blocks depending on what is going on around them.  I have straight line rulers for those so the good news is that I can do that stitching free-motion as opposed to using a walking foot which would require turning the quilt to complete those sections.   

For the six inch blocks, I had purchased a "Cube" template on Etsy a while back that will do a "concentric lines in a square" stitch pattern and is perfectly sized for those blocks.  I also want to "connect" the stitch pattern between adjacent blocks.

For the twelve inch blocks I envisioned doing something that contrasts the other stitching,  preferably a cuved pattern.  I thought about a number of options including doing Adria Good's  "Big Flower" motif that I did on my "Heartland" 3 Yard Quilt last year.   However I decided to stick with a cleaner line pattern so opted for a simple "Spiral Starburst" that I saw in Natalia Bonner's "Next Steps In Machine Quilting" book.     

I also have this great backing print for this project and even better, it's 108" wide so I won't have to do any piecing of it!

"Unstoppable" by Whistler Studio for Windham Fabric

I had purchased this back in 2021 when I originally thought I would try to finish this.  I got it during a Keepsake Quilting "Black Friday" sale of their 108" “wide back” three yard packs.  Of course this quilt only being lap sized means it doesn't need all the fabric this backing pack provided.  Fortunately in 2023,  I realized that I also needed backing for my much larger "Scrap Happy" project so all of the rest of it will go to help fill out the backing for that project!     

The hardest part to do now that I've got my quilting plan will be to layer this.  Actually no, the hardest part will be cleaning off my cutting table in order to have the space to layer this, LOL!!   

There's Also Still Alot of Cross Stitch Going On

Lastly, I will continue working on all the cross stitch projects I have in progress at the moment.

Home of the Free, Right to Vote, Craft Supply Lies and NY Skyline

A lot to do but surprisingly, with a clear plan it seems doable.  But then it always does seem that way until it isn't!  

Have you checked out what others have planned over at Carol's Quilt Schmilt link up?  Who knows, maybe your next project is there waiting to inspire you!

Finished or Not Friday: A Big Gift Project Is Finally Done!!

I am thrilled to start May off with a report on a big project completed.  Join me as I and other quilters check in at Quilty Girl Alycia's for this week's "Finished or Not Friday" projects! 

I will admit April closed with a lot going on and I must say that quilting was a haven in a storm of health and home repair issues.  For a couple of years now, I have been trying to finish a big projct:  making gift quilts for three members of my community garden's Steering Committee.  

I have displayed my quilts at the Art Shows our garden has hosted and the Committee members had been as enthusiastic about them as other attendees of the shows.  The last one we held was in 2023 and I had provided a quilt to raffle off at it.  

When the winner of it was one of the four Committee members,  I immediately hatched a plan:  now was the perfect time to make quilts for the other three members!

I actually had a head start on that since I had actually set out to make two quilts for raffling off.  I had used what has become my "go to" and favorite "simple to piece" quilt:  a "9 Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch" quilt that I learned how to make from a You Tube video.  Despite the quickness of the piecing, what I have learned over time in making these is that, at least for me, it takes me a good bit of time to make the fabric choices and decide where to place them within the top.  As part of the "disappearing" technique, some of the fabrics wind up getting flipped or turned from their intial orientation in the starting nine patch layout.  Once pieced back together to create the top, then I sometimes get hung up on how I want to quilt them.  

Edited To Add:  I realize that for the rest of this, it would also be good to join in over at Andree's "Quilting and Learning - What a Combo!" for this week's "Free Motion Mavericks" link up!

In the case of the second raffle quilt, I had decided to stitch it in what I believed would be a simple stipple variation called "Square Meander".  

I've since found demos of it here and it done in borders here.

I have done Stippling before but not this variation of it.  I thought it perfect for the quilt and I was excited to try it.  I got a late start quilting it right before the show but half way through got a little into my head about whether I was doing it "right".  Also since I was quilting it with a last minute deadline, I was also tense about whether I was filling the quilt space fast and evenly enough.  As a result I decided not to continue to stress myself out and abandoned finishing the second quilt in time for the show.  Of course the good news was that when the Committee member won the quilt that I did get finished and I decided to make more,  it meant I already had a half-finished quilt underway!

Well the plan was to finish it and two more for the other Committee members by the end of that year in the hopes of presenting them at the garden's annual Holiday Party.  Yeah right, that didn't happen!  Then time, tides and "squirrel projects" meant I didn't pick back up on finishing the quilting on that second quilt until the start of this year!  

This time I was determined to get all of the remaining quilts done before our season opened at the end of April so I finally got back on the horse!  What also helped with that was seeing someone demonstrating at a virtual quilting workshop the exact same stitch pattern I had done.  Of course it was immedately confirmed that I had been doing it right all along and getting a grip on myself,  I finished quilting it in one day back in January.

Okay one down and two to go!   Later that month, I pieced the next two quilt tops and finished the backings for both of them right before we made our annual winter visit to my MIL's during the week of Valentine's Day.  I swore when I came back I would quilt them up and try to have them done by the end of March, well before the season opening.  

However, at that virtual sumit I had also learned of two ideas that I wanted to employ on one of the quilts.  To start, in the center of the quilt I wanted to stitch a detailed echoed Heart motif with additional "Ribbon Candy" motifs stitched between the echoed areas.  I was hoping to take advantage of a Ribbon Candy workshop by Esther Frenzel of IPatch and Quilt.  I signed up for it in the hopes of learning more about this motif which it turns out is infinitely more versatile than I had ever imagined.  This quilt could then be one of my practice pieces.  

Again, yeah right!!  Given that this was a gift, maybe using this as a practice piece was not the best idea and I remained terrified of "messing it up"!  So instead it took me a couple of weeks to let go of that idea and just go with the other motif I learned at the Summit and had already sketched out so knew I could easily and quickly execute:  a large "Ribbon Stipple".  

Once I defaulted to the simpler all-over pattern,  I quickly stitched up the second quilt in one day rather than the two I thought it would take.

And with that Quilt #3 was done!

For the last quilt,  I had already planned to go a more traditional route with the quilting by doing another familiar all over pattern: "Baptist Fans".  I have stitched this design on four prior quilts using four different methods.  The last time I did it on my MIL's longarm and prior to that was when I made my civil war repro "Piecing the Past" quilt.  That one I ruler quilted with Westalee templates (and you can see a demo of them in action here).  So I had no concerns that this was doable using a free-motion method and could be completed in two or three days.   

The quilting in progress.....

However, in the end, this one took me almost a week to get done!  The reason it went so slow is that I used 80 wt Wonderfil DecoBob thread to quilt it and it took a while to figure out what my Juki machine needed to work well with that thread.  As it turned out, I had purchased something very helpful when I was first introduced to this thread at 2024's Quilt Con show:

These needles made all the difference!  With the HX-5 high-speed machine needles I normally use on the Juki, I was having trouble with frequent thread breakage.  Then I switched to these and it was "swoosh!" and super fast stitching straight through!  I had spent a day each on the first two rows of stitching but after changing the needles was then able to do four rows in about the same amount of time on the third day, another three rows the next day and finished up the last row on the final day of stitching.  I had picked up a whole bunch of these spools during a recent eQuilter sale so needless to say,  I will now have to stock up on these needles for all future sewing with this thread!  Problems solved, I quickly finished trimming up and binding the quilt and now the last quilt was ready to go!

With the last two finished, all three were now ready for gifting which was done last Thursday and as you can see here, everyone was happy with what they received!

I had asked the committee member on the right to bring the raffled quilt that she won two years ago so I could get a picture of them all together.  I was thrilled to have finally had the chance to honor these ladies for founding our garden fourteen years ago and continuing to work very hard to keep it a going concern ever since!

I had pushed to get the quilts finished and gifted before our garden's season opening which was scheduled for the last Saturday in April and would be our garden's "Earth Day" celebration as well.  Although I got the quilts gifted in time, unfortunately we had to postpone the opening day event due to rain.  We had rescheduled it for tomorrow but rain is now forecast for that day too so we will be trying again the Saturday before Mother's Day which as of right now is forecast to be a sunny day.  

Thank you for joining me on the recap of this latest quilt journey.  I hope you are as excited as I am to see what has bloomed out of everyone else's quilt studio for "Finished Or Not Friday" this week over at Alycia's!  Also get some ideas for approaches to finishing your quilts with Andree's "Free Motion Mavericks" at "Quilting and Learning - What a Combo!"

To Do Tuesday: Two Down, Now Four To Go!

 We are now full on into January and so far it's been a productive one!  I'm checking in again with Carol's "To Do Tuesday" over at her blog Quilt Schmilt (I chuckle every time I say that, LOL!) hoping the productivity good vibes will continue this week.

So last week's list was short and everything got accomplished as planned.  I had two goals:

1.  For Quilting:  Make the next top for another member of my community garden's Steering Committee:

From this....

....to this (backing is on the left)!

Forgive the cropping but still trying to hide these a bit until they are gifted.  The good news is that I went from the fabric piles in last week's post to a finished top and backing that includes the label area too!   I lucked up in that the backing fabric was already in stash and there's enough of it leftover for another project (I see another 3 Yard Quilt in my future!).  

BTW:  If you are a fan of the Fabric Cafe 3 Yard Quilts, did you know that today they premiered their new "5 Yard Quilts" book?  Whereas the 3 Yard Quilts make a lap quilt to start (although there are also instructions in the patterns for enlarging them), the 5 Yard designs will make Twin and Queen/King quilts!  Check it out if you haven't already done so!

I also have batting for this:  I have a package of my favorite (at the moment) cotton batting but it's a Twin so there would be a lot left over if I use that.  Then again, I might be able to take those leftovers and combine it with a bunch of scrap pieces I have of that same batting and make a Franken-batt for the next quilt I still have to make.  However, I also have three big pieces of another batt that would make a Franken-batt just about the size I need.  However, it's a polyester batting and I'm debating on whether I'd rather the easier piecing together of the polyester or the heavier weight of the cotton.  Decisions, decisions!  

2.  For Cross Stitch:  Make a mini wall hanging for my kitchen

Stitching completed and FFO'd

 And hung in place!

Also done!  I had finished the words in the center prior to working on the quilt and thought I'd be able to work on stitching the rest of it a little each day along with working on the quilt.  However, once I started in on the quilt work, I'd get to the end of the day and was too tired to stitch.  So I wound up wrapping up the cross stitching over the weekend after the quilt top and backing were finished.  It is a simple stitch so a few hours of TV with the hubby helped get it done and yesterday was spent on the finishing.  

I even finally, pulled out my serger and used it to secure the edge of the trimmed cloth before I laced it around the back of the hoop!  I am happy I reacquainted myself with that machine so now I can finish the edges of any cross stitch cloth I buy instead of using painters tape for that.  

So what's on the agenda for this week?  Normally I am the queen of "Too Long To-Do Lists" but getting last week's short list done means I should keep trying that and see if it holds.  So this week I'm going with a "flexible" four items:

Quilting

1.   Layer, baste and quilt the Committee quilt top.  What's good is that I attended Bea Byrne's January Quilt 'N Learn workshops Thursday - Saturday and picked up designs to use for this from a couple of workshops.  Tracey Browning who hosts the online Machine Quilting Academy, covered transforming a large stipple into a great ribbon design:

If I can doodle it, I can stitch it!

I also saw a great quilted heart design in another workshop (I can't remember which  edited to add:  Kellie Kaczmarek of Silly Moon Designs workshop "Quilting Your Own Quilts Like a Pro At Home!") that I think I will do in the center of this quilt.  The plan is to echo it and do some Ribbon Candy between the echoed areas.  More good news is that Esther Frenzel of iPatchandQuilt (and who I learned about in last August's Free Motion Quilting Summit is doing a free "Ribbon Candy" workshop series on her site over the next few days so I'll get some training and practice on that too! 

2.  Start the next committee quilt.  

For this one I have fabric bundled and want to start the design process.  I'm not rushing it though, if I wind up focusing on the other things on the list and don't get to it, I don't have a problem with the real focus on it waiting until next week.  

3.  My friend's memory quilt.  

I've pulled out the box of fabrics because I have to start the design process if I am going to have any chance of meeting the deadline of her birthday next month.  

Cross stitch

1.  As I had noted in my last post, I had planned to start on another decorating piece for the New Year which was not the one that I just finished.

Pattern by Needle Bling Designs

I have long wanted to do a series of quilts with the theme of "Home" and since I've started cross stitching have found a few designs I like in that craft too.  This one helps me fill out another decorating "hole".  I used to have two antique quilt blocks hung by the quilt display rod at our entry stairs:  

The two frames on the left.

They are Hexagon Flower blocks actually made during the Civil War era that I purchased in the gift shop of a quilt exhibit I had attended years ago.  They were perfect when my Civil War reproduction quilts were on display in this spot.  However, in recent years I have used this area to display other types of quilts so was interested in having something else to display here.

The great thing about this cross stitch piece is that the theme and style of it will work no matter what quilt I put up.  The challenge though is that the pattern I'm working from is laid out horizontally and I will have to either reformat it to a vertical orientation or stitch it as three separate images to work in the frame I purchased for it.  

So my expectation is that this one will take a little thought to get it set up.  I'm hoping that this won't turn out to be a project that puts up road blocks that will disrupt the good intentions of my short project list.  Let's see what happens....  

I'm done so go back over to Carol's at Quilt Schmilt and see what everyone else has planned for the week or even better share your crafty plans too!

7 Days of New Year's - Day 7: Happy New Year!!

    

Image by starline @ www.freepik.com

A very Happy New Year to everyone!  Here's hoping that we all have another fruitful year doing the things we love with and for the people we love!

Today marks the end of another  "7 Days" series.  I wasn't able to work on anything or post for Day 6.  DH was off from work so we took the opportunity to make an early run to the warehouse clubs and the supermarket.  Once back home, we needed to defrost and reorganize our auxiliary freezer to fit all the stuff we brought home.  The rest of the day and night was spent fielding calls or texts with New Year's wishes and watching the annual "Thin Man" movies and "Odd Couple" marathons so crafting was knocked off the list of activities for the day!  

And although DH is still off from work today, I'm hoping to start off the year the way I want it to continue: by working on moving some more projects either forward or to a finish!   I had originally planned to try to work on quilting a quilt for Day 6.  For the past few months I've had these three sitting on the back of my sewing table:

The front two (Steering Committee Gift #2 and "Over and Down Under") are partially quilted.  The back one ("Roaring Waves") is layered and pin basted.  The problem with that one is that I am still struggling with deciding on how to quilt it.  

I was tempted to continue the quilting on "Over and Down Under" which is the furthest along.  However, when I last stitched on it, I was still having some issues quilting it with the monofilament thread I was using on top.  Also because I used a National Parks panel in the backing of it,  I really wanted to complete it along with the blocks I started for Pat Sloan's "Ode to Our National Parks" Block Wednesday sew along.  So I think I'll leave both of those projects to work on at another time.  

So resuming the quilting on the "Steering Committee Quilt" it is!   I do have a good reason and incentives for getting this one finished now.  First is that I am not sure why I stopped in the first place!  I had picked out a “square loops” motif that is sometimes also called “circuit board” that I think was influenced by all the squares and rectangles of the piecing:

I thought it was one of those "mindless" designs that really shouldn't have been hard to execute but then I think I got "into my head" as I worked on it.  Looking back at my journal for this project,  I see that I had originally made it to be a second raffle quilt to offer for our community garden's Art Show in 2023.  However, I was "down to the wire" trying to finish it up so was "stress stitching" and of course got frustrated when it wasn't stitching out as quickly as hoped.  Someone once said to me that I must have a lot of patience to make quilts but obviously they aren't around to see me when it comes time to quilt them, LOL!!  Once I gave up on meeting the deadline, it got pushed aside to work on more immediately needed projects.  

Back in August last year (feels odd to say that right now!) when I attended the "Free Motion Quilting Summit"  virtual workshop series, one of the instructors demonstrated this very same stitch pattern.  Watching someone else do it, I was reminded that it really wasn't that difficult a stitch pattern and vowed to get back to it.  I put it on the schedule a couple of times and even took it down with me to try to stitch on while visiting my MIL in October.  Unfortunately, things have been busy up until now so it's finally time to make good on that vow.

The incentive for getting this one done is that this quilt is part of two quilt series:  one is that it is another of my now favorite "9 Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch" quilts.  After discovering this easy piecing design, I've finished two, one of which was the one raffled off and won by one of the members of my community garden's Steering Committee.  Since it had been in my plans for a while to make a quilt for each of them,  now that one of them already had one,  I was prompted to get in gear on making the remaining ones.  I already have FQ bundles picked out and organized for the other three I need to make.  So getting this one done would be an incentive to then get the others pieced up, quilted and hopefully gifted before our Spring season starts in March.  

So that's the plan for today! Oh, that and baking the new set of peanut butter cookies to mail in my MIL's package tomorrow.   Here's hoping that you have plans for working on things that will start you off in the direction you want to head for this new year! 

8:30 PM Update:  Quilting Is Done!  

Guess there is something to be said for taking a break from a project.  Will try to bind it tomorrow.

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 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!