March 30, 2018

My Leafy Checkerboard Finish

Time to share another big finish. I've been quilting on and off for close to 18 years and in all that time I have never made a quilt for my own bed. Seriously. Never. Can you believe it? Now I can proudly say my bed has a new cover.

leafy quilt

You may remember seeing these blocks eons ago. I worked on them slowly over the course of many months by taking them to BoulderMQG sew days. Month after month after month. I even blogged about it here back in January 2016. Over two years ago! Once the blocks were done it still took awhile for me to lay them all out and sew them together. Obviously it wasn't at the top of my to do list.

Karen at the Quilted Moose did the longarm quilting. I chose an all-over leafy pattern and love the look. I also made pillow shams from the giant hosta fabric I've hoarded for years. You know I love leaves.  : )

leafy quilt

Sadly, the quilted top sat all nicely folded up on a chair in the bedroom for far too long. I blame it on the binding fairies. They didn't show up as scheduled. Of course the thought of binding a queen size myself just wasn't appealing so I did what I do so very well. I procrastinated. Expecting two different house guests last month finally, finally pushed me into action.

I set up my machine downstairs on our long dining table and added another long folding table to the side. All this extra space was a tremendous help in supporting a queen size quilt. I also did it all by machine by attaching the binding to the back and then pulling it to the front and stitching it down close the the fold. It's so much faster for a big quilt. You can see this method used on another quilt here. Now that I've used this method a few times I'm getting better at finding that sweet spot for aligning my stitches. For quilts that will be used a lot, I think it's a great way to go.

In the photo below you can see most of the back. I used up a lot of the older leafy prints in my stash. This was at the ironing and trimming stage.

leafy quilt

I ended up making two quilts from these leafy scrappy trip blocks. The wall hanging below has actually been finished and in use for some time. I just never shared it on the blog.

leafy quilt

I love taking quilt photos in the wild and fell in love with this set of steps full of ivy. Don't you think it's perfect for this quilt?

leafy quilt


Hopefully I'll be back before another whole month goes by. Until then happy quilting and crafting.

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