Bordering on Insanity

It's been a little less crazy around here lately.  My daughter has gone back to working part time, so I'm babysitting only two to three days a week, at least for now.  It's a good time to try to do some catching up.  I've had a lot of help from our resident quilt inspectors.

There are some side benefits of writing a blog.  In years past, I'd always start a journal/diary in January, thinking I'd finally get the hang of remembering to write in in every day.  I never did.  I have lots of old diaries that are blank after February.  Now that I have a blog, I can actually look up what I was working on in the past.  That can be helpful.  Or embarrassing.  Or both.

This basket quilt first appeared on my blog in January of 2013.  It was nearly done, but I only had enough of the blue print fabric for the top and bottom borders.  My brilliant idea was to leave the side borders off and finish it that way.  Seriously.  I was actually going to do that.

I think even if my brain was frozen from the January Wisconsin cold, I should have known better than that.  Maybe some quilts would look all right that way, but not this one.  I dug it out of the basket the other day, and finally added the side borders.  They're a different indigo blue print, and that's okay with me.

NOW, it's ready for quilting.
Want to see what else was in the basket?

This is a signature quilt, made by members of Treadle On, an online group for those of us who sew on people-powered machines (treadles and hand cranks).  We exchanged these blocks in online swaps in 2002 and 2004.

Participants wrote on the blocks in permanent ink, giving their names, where they lived, and what kind of machine they sewed on.  Reading these is fascinating.  My favorite quote is "Laugh Lots, Sew Much".

Most of the fabrics were bright colors, and I made more blocks to make the quilt bigger.  I got stuck on the border, and put the top away.

When I got it out again, purple just seemed like the right color.  I happened to have a big piece of this fabric.

Another flimsy finished, ready to quilt.  More memories preserved.

Does this look familiar?  It's the same pattern as the quilt above, in a smaller size and different set.  Sometimes this pattern is called Shaded 4 Patch.  Click here to see a tutorial on how to make them in a 3 in. finished size.  My Treadle On quilt blocks are 6 in. finished, and the blocks above are 4 in. finished.  I started out making them like in the tutorial, but ended up just cutting triangles with the Easy Angle ruler.  (I hate techniques that involve drawing lines.)

The strong diagonal element in the block makes it suitable for log cabin style layouts.
Once again, I had set a quilt aside because I was dithering about what to do on the border.

This time, I made more blocks to increase the size before I added the border.  I needed 80 more of these little blocks.  They were easy and fun to sew.

The border is a blue print I've been hoarding for a long time.

It was fun sewing these long bobbin-busting seams, and finally getting these quilts out of limbo.

New motto for 2017--stop dithering about borders and just get it done!

Stay warm, and keep quilting!
Cheers,
Sylvia

I'm linking up with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts  and Myra at Busy Hands Quilts today.