Million Pieces is Quilted!

What more can I say.  I took the Million Pieces Quilt off of Ruthie yesterday.  Sad story was I was on the last border following a design I had chalked on and for no apparent reason I went straight when I should have turned.  Weird. Needed to rip out about 3" of stitching.  It was too close to when I needed to go to the hair dresser so I didn't finish until Tuesday morning.  I've been playing with other stuff a bit but I almost have the nearly 400" of binding made.  Today I should finish with it and sew it on by machine.  Then the tedious part of hand sewing it down.  The finish is getting closer and closer.  YEA! 

I promised I would show you  the finished tree skirt.  Here it is in all of its glory.  I finished it a bit differently than the pattern which basically has you sew all around the edges leaving an opening and "birth" it.  Ties are added down the edges. Yuck.  Ties were way too big.  So I sewed around everything but the center circle. I used bias binding to cover that and added little ties up there.  I'll be passing this over to Jenny and Brian over Thanksgiving.  

I hope to finish the table runner I showed here.  I'm making simple blocks with Halloween themed fabric to use as the backing.  That way I figure there will be two table runners for the price of one.  I will quilt it on my domestic sewing machine in straight lines once it is ready.  (I mention straight lines because a while ago I tried to do a light stippling on the DSM and it looked awful! I've lost the knack.) 


Do you try to take "artsy" pictures of your quilts? I do especially for the blog.  I'm not a complete failure at this but let's just say for every "artsy" photo that hits the blog there are 10 or so ho-hum photos hanging around. This was one of my artsy attempts using an evergreen in the front yard. Washed out, doesn't show the quilt well.  Sigh.  Heaven help me when I decide to take pictures of the finished Million Pieces Quilt... I don't have any where I can get far enough away to get the whole quilt in.  We may have to go somewhere else for a photo shoot! 


Today's plans -- finish the back for the table runner, finish the last quadrant of the trip around the world quilt and decide how many more strips need to be added to make it fit a queen bed size.  Think about starting an easy Thanksgiving themed wall hanging.  (Check out the cute turkey at Fat Cat Patterns.)  I plan on piecing 4 1/2" squares from a lot of tan neutrals for the 16 1/2" backing fabric. Or at least I think I am 'cause I pulled way too many of them out yesterday and they now litter the cutting table.  I will need that table soon to trim -- you know which quilt.  So, with no further ado (or typing) I'm off to shower and then the studio.  


Happy Quilting All!