UFO is back in progress!

I love DC Modern Guild meetings...they really keep the momentum going.  And this week, my skills were stretched yet again with group project led by Linda and her friend Anne.  We were working on Pockets to Go Caddies!

Nifty zippered pocket with lining :)

The interior pockets!

Mine is almost finished...It needs a little more hand binding and the top binding/handles.  Trying to sew the binding on the sides nearly made me throw the thing against the wall--but both Linda and new friend Sarah talked me off the ledge of insanity/frustration. 

I really cannot say enough great things about this guild.  It's full of wonderful, enthusiastic, supportive people that have become a delight to see each month.  We had so many new attendees at this meeting that people had to sit on the floor!  I will definitely bring my portable table to the next meeting.

Today, with the charity project handed off to the guild (Linda again...she's amazing!), I got to pick the Hooterville quilt up again.  The pieces are FINALLY together! 

Now...my first attempt at quarter triangles was a bit rough, but it's so colorful and fun that I don't care...and I'm leaving it as a record of where I started in my quilting journey--this was the first pattern I decided to tackle, and I didn't know yet to starch the fabric first. (Always starch first to make your life easier.)

A few corners did meet up a little nicer.  I'm so happy to see it together, hopefully I'll add borders tomorrow and get back to machine quilting soon.

Well, I should get back to my hand sewing while I still have some movie left to watch with my hubby!

I'm linking up with UFO Sunday at The Free Motion Quilting Project.  It's a great place to see a variety of projects young and old.  Check it out!

Long awaited progress on a UFO

Last September when I got seriously hooked on quilting I first finished a quilt top that I'd had in progress for over two years.  Then, because the first quilt top was large and difficult for me to imagine quilting as a first-timer, I made a baby quilt with some bright, beautiful fabrics I'd fallen in love with during a class on "Making a Quilt Sandwich."  (This class by the way was when I realized I'd need a new machine to be able to effectively machine quilt at all.)

Well, a series of problems led to this being tucked away as a UFO...
1.) The borders were attached in a stretched manner...still not sure what I did, but the borders flare so I must have cut them bigger than I needed to.
2.) I layered the batting and backing unevenly, so as I quilted outwards, some of the quilt top was no longer centered over the batting.
3.) Before I could free motion quilt, I chose a straight line pattern that required LOTS of turning...and that was just really annoying and exhausting to struggle with the quilt on the machine.  I lost lots of enthusiasm there.
4.) When I finally got started free motion quilting, I started to get thread breaks about every inch.  This led to discovering that the Inspira brand needles work great in my Janome.

5.) And then, frustrated with FMQ, and unsure of how to quilt the borders, I tried a parallel line pattern.  That was the final straw...I created all sorts of puckers.

And so it sat...until yesterday.

I completed a small patch of swirl stippling that still needed finishing. (No thread breaks!)

But that did include a frustrating mistake...seen here:

 The backing fabric folded back on itself!

Lots of ripping to fix that.  I seriously considered setting the project down again.  It seemed destined to fail. :/

Then, this morning, I spent HOURS ripping out the ten lines of quilting on the borders.

All the threads I collected as I ripped.

And finally, I started to use the Flowing Lines pattern from the FMQA #34 to quilt the edges!

Yay progress!!!  I seriously doubted it for a minute there!  Again...many thanks to Leah Day.  I'm linking up to UFO Sunday, and my question for Leah is "How do you attach borders / sashing in the most successful, least painful way possible?"  I've improved, but I still freeze up on projects that require lots of long strips sewn together.

To all my readers, I'm also curious, what color binding would YOU use for a quilt that's this colorful?

Endless Bias Binding!

So here's the new trick I learned at guide lessons on Monday...it's a great way to make bias binding out of a square without much waste. AND...I was able to successfully do it on the first try! ...well, I did have to rip the first seam because I sewed wrong instead of right sides together. Rookie mistake. I got too excited.

Okay. First cut out a square of your binding fabric, slice from corner to corner, and lay out like this:
Then, fold over and pin:
Sew a 1/4 inch seam, press your seam open, and draw your lines for the binding width of your choice (mine were 2 inches).Now, the tricky part, line up your lines so that the first strip is sticking off to one side. The goal is to have a continuous strip that you can cut and cut in a big spiral all the way to the end. I match the first line on one end with the second line on the other; then, pin the rest of the lines making sure that both lines meet at the point where your 1/4 inch seam will be sewn.

Close up view:
Sew your 1/4 inch seam and begin cutting your strips (I now recommend pressing open the seam 1st, but I didn't).

Then you'll have this:

Press, and you have one long piece of bias binding with no waste!