Finished Friday

Whew!

First week back at work done and a completed quilt to show off to boot - not too shabby!

Diamond Jubilee Jelly Roll Race

And here it is...my Diamond Jubilee jelly roll race quilt.  Started in 2012 in actual race format, this poor quilt top sat folded up and unloved for nearly three years.  In just two months, the borders have been added, the quilting has been stitched and the binding rounded it off.

In the main body of the quilt, I stitched gently rolling wavy lines that intersect periodically.  I wanted to break up the harsh, vertical lines and add some sense of movement.

In the borders, I used FMQ to stitch a playful doodle of loops and hearts.  I also stitched some cursive words into each border - on the top and bottom borders, 'Diamond Jubilee' (one word per border) and then on the left and right borders, 'I love London'.  I used the tissue paper template method (more info here & video links) for all the FMQ and it worked really well.

And then my love affair with binding...

7 Week summer holiday recap:

• Completed tote bag for a friend
• Completed handbag for me
• Completed Harmonic Convergence wallhanging
• Completed Diamond Jubilee quilt
• Completed baby quilt with my friend Ingrid (photos forthcoming)
• Pieced HST layer cake QAL top
• Pieced Red Velvet top

Needless to say, I'm very pleased with my summer projects!

WIP Wednesday

Welcome back to WIP Wednesday.

Recently I've been working on the quilting for my Diamond Jubilee jelly roll race quilt.  After having under estimated the amount of blue thread I would need to quilt the interior lines, it got pretty nail-biting when I realised I was nearly out of red thread for the border and I still had about half of the last border to quilt - eek!  Luckily, I found a bobbin of the same thread from my Elna that I used as top thread once the spool ran out, and then I got to play the ever so fun game of divide the itty-bitty bit of thread between two bobbins to make it stretch.  I just managed to squeak out that last border but this is literally what I had remaining for thread by the end:

Crisis adverted, all of the outer borders were done using tissue paper stencils I made myself.  Then on to tearing off the paper (it wasn't that bad - much less stressful than trying to make thread last).

Now I'm in the process of burying threads, which I normal loathe doing.  However, in an attempt to make the process less awful, I did a quick search on YouTube (have I mentioned how much I love YouTube?) and found this awesome method for burying threads:

I love this method so much, since you don't need to thread the needle every time you bury a set of threads - sooo much simplier and faster!  Won't be long now and I can add the binding.

Linking up to Freshly Pieced: