SO MUCH FUN!

On Wednesday morning I was able to put together the latest quilt top.  I had written about "webbing the top"--here is the top on my pressing "desk" with all the vertical seams sewed.  So all eight rows are sewed together, row by row.  I tried to get a better picture, as the light is glaring off this one.

The one above shows the sides, this one following shows the top as the quilt lies on the pressing desk.

Here it is with the horizontal seams being sewed:

And here it is on the floor, all seams sewed together.  This makes it 44" x 55", a good generous size for a lap quilt.

Time to look for a backing fabric.  Here are two possibilities, both flannel, neither big enough in itself, but it might make a nice combination.  Off to the right are a few other 

possibilities.

This morning I was able to sew these two together to form a large enough backing.  There was also enough left-over batting that I could form a large enough piece by sewing together two pieces.  I'm ready to make the "quilt sandwich" on this one.  (For some strange reason this paragraph insists on being "centered.")

Today is the first 50% off day at the local quilt shop in their twice-yearly sale week.  I don't usually buy fabric then.  They give me 10% off year-round, just because I'm beyond 55 years old, and that's good enough for me.  But I'm planning a big, major quilt for DD#2, so I did go in this morning and look for beiges.  

The pattern stipulates 14 (!) different beiges for background, and calls for 1/2 yard of each.  But I want to enlarge the quilt from 70" square to 105" square, a floor to floor queen sized quilt.  Translating that to the larger sized quilt and from yards to meters meant I need one meter of each of the background fabrics.

I had looked earlier and found at least 7 beiges that would work.  But this morning there seemed to be good beiges here, there and everywhere.  I found 15 (!) that I thought might do well.

I may not use all of them, but what a lovely selection!  And what fun to put 15 bolts of fabric into my cart and have them cut a meter of each.  And then I thought I should look for the contrasting fabrics.  This is what I found:

Nice, rich colours that go pretty well together.  I'd like to find one more of the orange/brown, but could go with this combination.

I'm just SO eager to begin this quilt.  It's the "Entwined" pattern that I posted recently.  But before I start I really need to finish the donation quilt and a smaller table topper that I have the top almost completed.  They both need to be "sandwiched," quilted and bound.  THEN I can allow myself to dive into this one.  I can't wait!