Dick and Jane Quilt Top

I just finished this little quilt top today. It is for a cute little two year old - the daughter of my next door neighbors. They also have a newborn boy, so he is next up for a quilt, too. Yes. I know. The black and white half square triangle border is going every which way. I realized that after it was put together. The corners are supposed to look like the upper left and lower right ones and not like the other two. I am hoping the little girl won't notice. On the other hand, now that I am looking at this photo, I may take it apart and do it correctly. Sigh.

As soon as the fabric for the backing arrives from Connecting Threads, I will begin machine quilting. They are having a one week sale on Quilter's Candy fabric and a cheery yellow dotted piece will be perfect for the backing of this quilt. From the same source I also was able to snag a piece of royal blue dotted fabric for the back of the QOV quilt top.

Both tops will be quilted on a 1950 Singer 66. I have a walking foot for the 66 and tried it out on a quilt sandwich sample. Seems to work great. The 66 is a workhorse and the harp (distance from the needle to the right side of the machine) measures 9", which is 3" wider than my Pfaff. I am counting on the extra space to make this task easier. I will back the cabinet up to the Koala cabinet that houses the Pfaff. That machine will be retracted into the base of the cabinet, giving me a large unobstructed (unless there is a cat on it) area to take the extra size and weight of the quilt. I will only be doing straight stitching as the feed dogs don't drop on this machine. There is a solution to that and in the future I may try my hand at free motion quilting on this machine.

This evening I spent some time organizing a few things in the sewing room. I have quite a few large pieces of fabric that have been purchased here and there that are intended for quilt backs. I took them all out, measured them, and marked the individual pieces with the yardage so I won't have to do this every time a backing is needed. Duh! Shoulda done that the first time. All of the stray pieces of scrap fabric lying around on the floor were picked up, cut into Bonnie Hunter's Scrap Saver system or chucked into the bin for Victoria Findlay Wolfe's 15 Minute of Play workshop coming up in July.

The templates for Sharon Pedersen's Rose of Sharon quilt finally arrived after over three weeks en route from Nine Patch Media in Victoria, British Columbia. I have the idea to use them for the applique on the TQS 2013 BOM that is still languishing on the wall. All in good time.

Happy Easter, All!