SPLIT 9 PATCH FINISH

Just now I finished putting the binding on a Split 9 Patch quilt, one of the UFO's from the fabric closet.  This is a quilt that I demonstrated last summer at IDA, our local quilt store.  That's always a fun time.  I set up my sewing machine, a design board and start making blocks.  There's a handout showing each of the steps in the process and quilters drop by during the day to pick up a set of directions and watch the process.  It means I go home with quite a few finished blocks that need some more blocks made and then they can form a quilt.

There were some of these Split 9 Patch blocks in the fabric closet, and this is the second finish of those UFO's.  Two other projects ended up in the burning barrel, a Jacob's Ladder (9 blocks of varying sizes) and a failed denim bag.

I made the extra blocks and put the quilt together.  Then I picked out borders.  Here are  two possibilities:

It looked to me that the blue was a "hands down" better choice.  So that's what I went with.  The first time I applied the borders they were too "wavy."  That happens when a border that's a bit too long is sewed to a quilt.  They needed to be taken off and be shortened.

I took a short cut and ripped them off.  Yikes!  Yes, just remove a bit of the seam, take hold of the quilt top in one hand and the border in the other and give a good hard pull.  The border will separate from the quilt.  I should have pressed the borders after that maneuver, but forgot to do that.  That meant that one side of the border was longer than the other.  Now that's not too bad if you sew the longer edge to the quilt.  That will make the borders nice and snug on the outer edge.  Three of them were sewed on that way; the fourth had the stretched outer side to the outer edge.  Well!  That was quite a few missteps along the way.  But I went ahead and made the 3 layer quilt sandwich.

 Yesterday at the town quilt club meeting I got most of the machine quilting done.  This morning I finished up that step, made the binding (same fabric as the border) and got that applied.  I sewed it to the back of the quilt, folded it over to the front and top stitched it down.  All that needs to be done now is to snip off the thread ends on the back of the quilt.  The back is also from the stash, a large piece of polkadot flannel, cut in half and a fairly large piece of blue flannel.  The blue flannel is in the middle, with a wide strip of polka dot flannel on either side.

This next photo shows the border with the binding, and the variegated thread stitching on both sides:

Another finish, this one two weeks ago, was a pair of hand-knit socks, a Christmas gift promised to Lola in the Christmas gift exchange of the town club.  She chose the yarn and I knit this pair after returning from AZ.  I hadn't sewed in the end thread, just in case they needed some adjustment.  But they fit beautifully just this way.  I finished them at the club meeting two weeks ago and they went home with her.