JUST A LITTLE QUICK PROJECT

Last Saturday my friend Marcy and I were in the sewing room when a realtor we know stopped by and delivered several (lots and lots) of boxes and very large garbage bags full of materials.  She had listed a home here in the village of a woman who had entered a care facility.  I don't know how that woman stored all of this fabric.  Marcy and I called Joan and she came over to the sewing room.  The three of us worked all morning sorting the fabrics.  Quite a few were good for quilting, but there were also a lot that we sent on to Goodwill.  By a lot I mean that Joan and John's car was STUFFED with boxes and bags of fabric.

Thursday is our regular quilting day.  When I arrived at the sewing room Joan was busy sorting another fabric donation.  She and I worked until 12:30 that day, sorting and putting away more and more and more fabric.   From this donation we are sending 6 large cardboard boxes and 4 large garbage bags of fabric to Goodwill. There were also some half finished projects.  I took two of those home with me and last night I was going to finish one of them.

This is fabric that is already quilted.  I just needed to apply some binding.  That didn't go without problems, though.  There was some deep pink double fold binding with the project and I began applying that to the edge.  It was going well.  This wasn't going to take much time at all!  And then, slightly past half-way the binding ran out.  Awww!  I went to the sewing room in the Community Center to see if there was any more of that binding in the last bag of "give away."  No luck.  But I did find some other, slightly light pink binding and took that home with me.

This afternoon I ripped off the deep pink binding--yes, literally ripped it off.  Then I applied the new binding, finishing it nicely with a bias seam to join the ends.  Of course, if you do a 45º angle seam on bias binding, you are no longer on the bias but on the straight grain.  It turned out well, I thought.  It will be useful to someone.

When I put the finished quilt back in the bag it came in I found an unopened package of the deep pink binding.  Oops!  Could have finished it last night if I realized there was more of the binding in the bag.

Then I started on the second second-hand project.  This was a little more complicated.  It was a 40" x 42" quilt top of strips, serged together.  I pressed all the seams carefully in one direction.  There was a piece of backing just the right size.  I went to the Sewing Room and picked up a piece of left-over batting that just fit this project.  But there was no binding for this project, so I finished it another way:  I spray basted the batting to the backing and then laid the quilt top on the backing, right sides together.  I pinned it carefully all around the edges to keep it from shifting and sewed all but about 12" on one side, turned the quilt right side out and stitched the 12" shut by hand.

This needs to be machine quilted, but I don't have the right thread here.  I'll have to go back to the sewing room tomorrow and see what thread there is for machine quilting it.  I'll post a picture of that quilt as soon as it's finished.

So, two quick easy finishes in just a few days.  These will go to the "Love House"--a local shelter for abused and abandoned children.