Last Quilt of 2021

Let me explain.  This is the last quilt I finished in 2021.  But I do have another finish from December to show sometime soon.  You might have seen the sneak peek here of this quilt. 

The blocks are paper pieced from Sew Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Mary Hertel. Should I admit I started the blocks, um, about 3 years ago? Last fall I finally finished the blocks and started planning sashing and borders.  I purchased some bright blue to sash the blocks but I was trying to use stash for the rest. This silver and black is actually snowflakes. I sent off pictures to two of my trusted quilting buddies.  Nope, this didn't get unanimous rave reviews. To me the bright blue stuck out too much and the gray was too bright. 

I tried again. My goal was to bring the quilt to about 40" square.  But using just the grey didn't work.  I tried making the grey smaller (2.5") and adding a slightly larger  black border. Much better.  

 Next up was quilting. An overall computerized design was vetoed.  And, I agreed. So the plan evolved that I would pin baste it and stitch in the ditch. Luckily I didn't get rid of my curved pins! 

Next up quilting on my Bernina.  (I did most of the table runners the same way so I felt fairly confident it would turn out ok.) The blocks were stitched in the ditch with some additional stitching within the characters. The sashing and outside border got straight line quilting just to hold it in place. I stitched in the ditch on the outside edge of the grey border.

On to the binding. Both sides are done by machine.  I start by stitching the binding to the back of the quilt.  Then I pull it to the front and stitch close to the edge.  Generally, this gives me a very nice look on the front.  Mostly the stitching on the back is either right on the binding or very close to it on the quilt and isn't very noticeable   It's my preferred binding method. 

The last thing I needed to do was add eyes to the characters. This wasn't as easy to do as it seemed at first. How do you get eyes to show up on the penguins?  I did a button search in all my button containers, several which were from my grandma.  In the end I found 3 different eye styles.  The upper left penguin got small buttons that were mostly black but had some light colored metal on the tops.  I'm pretty sure they were buttons from my grandma's collection.  I also found a pair of mottled brown and cream buttons for the guy on the bottom left.  Mr. Belly Button Penguin on the right only needed one eye.  I found a bigger white button and a really small, black doll button and sewed them on together.  You can definitely see that eye. (This penguin is sold on Mary's Etsy page along with her book.) I thought the double eye was my idea but no, that's how his eye is on the pattern. Oh well!  The snowmen and polar bears got black buttons for eyes. And a bigger black button for a nose. I guess I need a belly button on this guy. 

 Since we had that big snow storm on Monday I thought some snow pictures would be great for the glamour shots.  Ugh, not particularly easy to do as there were mounds of snow all around the side walks and driveway.  Here's what I came up with.

And the backing -- three pieces of fabric from my stash. I was happy to be able to use fabric from my stash again!

The final shot -- the finished quilt hanging over the fireplace.  It was designed to hang there during the winter months. (Well, I might have a Valentine's Day quilt that will go up early February.) The trees were done by hubby. 

Since I always enjoy reading about the process an idea goes through to become a quilt I decided to share some of the major steps of this quilt.  And, yes, I've actually named it: Uncommon Friends.  As much as we all think penguins and polar bears should be found in the same locations they aren't.  Penguins are mostly in the southern hemisphere (with one species above the equator.)  Polar bears are found only in the arctic areas - northern hemisphere.  But, honestly, snowmen don't really have anything to do with penguins and polar bears! So they really are Uncommon Friends. And, honestly, if penguins shared a habitat with polar bears they probably would be part of their food chain. 

I will be linking up with lots of linky parties today. I hope you'll do a little surfing to see what folks are working on. 

Midweek Makers

Needle and Thread Thursday

Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop?

Finished or Not Friday

Beauties Pageant

I'm really happy with my last finish of 2021.  Now I need to start to think about a quilt or two to finish this month.  Hum, do I have any backing fabric that will work with any of the tops I have?  

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie