hands 2 help - october quilt

Last week I teased you with the photo of the cats helping with the Hunter's Star quilt...

But since this is a finished quilt post, let's start at the beginning, shall we?

For my birthday last fall, my mom gave me a bundle of fat quarters and a bit of yardage.

I wasn't sure what to do with it until I hit up on a Hunter's Star in a book.  "A Baker's Dozen" noted as being written by "the staff at That Patchwork Place".  Their instructions, cobbled together with a Hunter's Star ruler and those instructions, allowed me to make this quilt.  There are posts in October detailing more of my troubles, but long story short, I made it work.

Of course I had help along the way, including the layout help from Freddie.  This was before he got a little brother, so he is more inclined to be people-y.  Now he seems to still be pouting about having to share his house and be the middle child.

Eventually, with a few struggles to make points match nicely, I had a top.

Last fall, before we had snow, I got this beautiful photo.  (The trees, in my opinion, are far prettier than the quilt, but they do coordinate nicely!)

And then it sat.  I even pieced a back from leftover fabrics.  But longarming just got put on hold for a while.  No good reason.  It just did.

But a few weeks ago, I realized the Hands 2 Help deadline was fast approaching and I had quite a few tops that needed to be quilted.  So I'm trying to do one per week.  They don't take too long because generally I'm not doing anything fancy, but they do take time.  So does the binding.

This one went on the longarm almost two weeks ago (I'm a bit behind in reporting them, but we'll get there!).

The first photo in the post was me trying to make sure I had the back going the right direction because this quilt is not square.  I opted to do the same swirls and leaves motif I did on the green and black quilt in the last post.  This one also is not going to show the quilting much, so it was just fine.  And again, I struggled to see where I had been.  Thankfully, though, this one did not start with or create a headache!

However, I didn't realize it was going to be this close, but...

...I cut it really close.  I was able to quilt all the way to the edge of the quilt without the red snappers interfering, but I was a little worried.

Next up, I realized this is about the only quilt on the Rack of Shame that doesn't have a binding.  I've been trying to be good about making the binding when I finish the top so I don't have to find the fabric later and I know it's ready.  But I'm pretty sure I used up every last scrap of this fabric between blocks, borders and the back, so I went digging in the stash.  No black looked right.  (You know how there are 40,000 shades of black, right?  Not helpful!)  So I ended up using a solid grey.  I'm not sure I like it, but it was what I had and I was not going to try to figure out who might be open to make a trip out.  Or order it and hope it gets here before I need it.

And yesterday, the weather was nice enough to get a few morning photos.  (As the day progressed, it got colder, rained, hailed, rained more and generally got nastier and nastier.  But no snow, as some north of us got, so I'll just be happy with what we got.)

I think it's about 58x66, but don't quote me on that.  I didn't measure and only have some scribbled notes I found on a paper in the book to guess at!

Other sewing that has happened this week: masks.  I mentioned my sister-in-law requested some for her family.  I got those finished Wednesday, but just late enough that the post office was closed.  So Thursday morning, this batch went south:

I made two for each family member, hoping to make the laundering between use a little easier to coordinate.

I also did make a trip out for some quilt backs!

One of these has already been used for a charity quilt, another will go on the back of a second charity quilt and the last will go on the back of the macaroons quilt.  Care to guess which goes on the cookie quilt?!

But there have been a lot of things happening lately that have kept me from my sewing room.  Work, of course.  And we made the rounds to visit moms yesterday - with appropriate social distancing - and dropped off a few gifts and made sure everyone is healthy.  (So far, so good - knock on wood!)

Today I finally got to head back in and worked a while on the macaroon blocks.  But my back was really hurting to sit there and sew.  It usually doesn't bother me, but I decided to call it quits after I got the cookie parts sewn together.  I still have to "lose" corners to shape them more like cookies, but one step at a time.  Her birthday is in mid-June, so that's what I'm shooting for...

Speaking of cookies...I baked snickerdoodles yesterday.  I think I've made those once - in 7th grade home ec.  I know we brought the recipes home for everything we made, but I don't remember if I ever made them again.  I didn't do a lot of cooking or baking growing up, and only realized I was fairly adept at baking a few years into my relationship with my hubby.  But the cookies sounded good, so I made some.  The hubby claims he doesn't like snickerdoodles.  And then ate about 5.  Hmmm...

And lastly, I just realized I never credited the pattern for the quilt I presented in the last blog post, so I'll be going back to edit that post.  I want to make sure the designers get their credit and if anyone else wants to make it, they know where to look!  (I know I hate it when I find something I love and I can't figure out how to get the pattern, so I'm going to try to not be that person.)

Happy quilting!

Wash your hands!

Katie

PS Finn wants you to know that as I was lounging on the chair/ottoman in the sewing room, he was keeping me company.

He takes this job very seriously.  Particularly the part where he rubs his drooly face on my hands so I remember to pet him always.  This is best done when mom is trying to type a text to her friend.  Mom should obviously be spending less time on her phone.  Or doing anything with her hands that is not petting him.