Hello my bloggy friends… Hope that October is treating you well!
Now that you have seen THIS SEASONAL side of me… How about this side too 😀
Can’t help but be a bit silly!!! I am finishing up now my SECOND finish since my last post y’all!!!
It didn’t take long last Sunday until I finished all that hand stitching of the binding and got to this point!!!!
I wash my freshly finished quilts on cool or cold with some regular soap liquid. I bought the washer I have now just because it has this HUGE tub to soak my quilts in too… so I add a 30 minute soak now to new quilts in that cool water!!! I will follow that with a drying session but find NEW big quilts need a second wash on warm if they will tolerate it based on colors used and a nice hard dry the second time to get the crinkly effect we love !!! I use 80% cotton and 20% wool batting by Hobb’s Tuscany from Connecting Threads in all my bed quilts… We love it ❤
While it was washing I picked up the pillow top I am hand quilting to add to the bed.
My honey likes a snuggly little 16″ cotton fluffy pillow to sleep with but has very oily skin. So he goes through pillows about one every couple years… this is the same pattern we have on the bed presently on his snuggle pillow but the other one is batik greys which clash with this civil war / reproduction style quilt colors we are going to now.
Once my honey was up and Molly, our shih poo puppy who will soon celebrate 4 months old, was being watched by him… I decided it was time to go back in the sewing room for a bit… while the washing and drying was going on for the second round and work on Roberta’s commissioned quilt project!!!
Above I am outlining the completely machine quilted center… have I said how much I do not like machine quilting myself ?? I won’t accept any more big machine quilting projects…I don’t mind doing things for my Etsy shop… they are FUN!!! But this.. was PURE struggle to quilt via machine… I am made for hand quilting personally. lol! At least I now KNOW this about myself ❤
Soon enough I had to take a break… or several as I fluffed the quilt in the dryer because it is soooo big… 105″ square it finished up here…
Here is a photo of the center….
And here is my show photo!!!!
And finally y’all! I can share these photos of it on our bed 😀
The pillow shams look great in their own design with the quilt too we think!!! And the backing is AWESOME and COZY too 😍
Soon I had an idea and got to work making straight lines coming out from the inner border using beige thread on top to match this outer border… I had used a very light grey on the center to match that… it was really almost a silvery white in the Aurifil 50 wt realm 🙂
During a quilting break I did this…
Then when I got home I finished the machine quilting of that border and while my muscles enjoyed the break out of the house… it was time to sew on the binding!!! YIPPEE!!!
Y’all… I have never been THIS CLOSE on a binding….
That is only 1/4″… I had more of the fabric available to use … but when I made the binding up I thought I had left PLENTY of binding to have 6″ or more! Was I WRONG!!!
So as I write this…
And here is the official label I will add backing fabric to and sew onto the back bottom of the quilt itself…
Here it is rinsed and ready to press and sew then wash and dry whenever the quilt is finished and washed….
So today I will finish the long left side of this quilt binding… then focus on getting the label on and measure for and make the hanging sleeve for it using THIS YouTube tutorial from Bonnie Browning of AQS. Then I can wash it ONCE on warm with a towel in with it to make sure it gets good and clean (smaller quilts I always add a towel to the washing and drying to keep it from knotting up). And dry it well. Come back next week to see if I got this delivered… I will try to convince Roberta to let me take her photo with it ❤
Also I got my first ever “award” on one of my most often visited Facebook groups this morning…
I got this from showing the photos under recent… but mainly my overabundance of love SHOWN TO ME on my photos of Hanover Stars completion during the week.
I did see this in this same facebook group as the focus on this weeks show and share was hand quilted quilts you had flying geese in… I would LOVE to make a bear paw with fun borders on it like this one is done!!!
This is a cute pumpkin and that bird I have liked in florals … looks awesome in solid reading fabrics too ❤
Here is my quilting label idea for Hanover Stars…
Maybe I will get that done this week using the same fabric I printed Roberta’s quilt label with now that my printer ink arrived yesterday (I was out of black!!).
We have several items up for sale right now in the vintage sewing world of goodies… do you sew vintage??? Feel free to PM me on Facebook or email me HERE if you need any advice or items for your particular vintage machine (1930’s to 1960’s) 🙂
Whilst I have been doing all this stitching by hand.. I have gotten back to Bluprint by Craftsy… Hoping to make this in the not too distant future and thoroughly enjoyed this class 😀
Here is a nice example too made by a class member!

Overall I think this is what we really need… not more time watching tv or listening to music or even pondering things like politics… but time being positive & kind!
Did my opening photo make you chuckle a bit??? I hope so !!!
What are you thankful for as Canada prepares for all things Thanksgiving tomorrow and here in North Carolina USA we are watching the leaves start to change and some are already falling…
Share what you are grateful for… what kind deed happened to you or that what positive domino effect you were part of!!! For me I will say finishing this quilt is a blessing and the kindest deed I have ever sacrificed over!!! hahaha.. sounds funny but it has been a struggle for sure y’all ❤ Now it is your turn to leave me a comment.
Spread the kindness contagion and…