Quilt: Finally Finished

After many weeks the quilt I’ve been working on is finally finished. Now what?

Yesterday afternoon I started cutting, sewing and pressing the bias tape for the border to the quilt that I have been working on. Over the previous week I had finished the quilting, utilizing the “in-the-ditch” and “straight-line” stitches, well, combining them, to create little 1½ inch squares over the entire design, which works well with the framed 9-patch. Of course, I put the quilt stitches I used in quotations because a majority of them were not in-the-ditch nor straight. Alas, I attest that since the fabric used from the Moda Scrap Bag is called Frolic, I frolicked my quilting too.

With the bias tape ready I realized I forgot to double my measurements and had to cut and make more. I’m kinda stupid like that sometimes, but fortunately it would have just been one more strip since I cut way more than I initially thought I needed, but was six inches short. I trimmed off the excess batting and backer fabric to make it even with the front of the quilt and carefully pinned the border onto every other square to keep it in place while sewing. Once that was done a debate over which type of stitch to use for the border began. I was thinking of doing a zig-zag stitch and even entertained digging out some of the various drop-in pattern cartridges, but in the end I decided to just do a straight stitch to go with the rest of the quilt.

Surprising myself and even my 1963 Singer Touch & Sew Deluxe Zig-Zag Model 600 sewing machine, I encountered no problems sewing the border on. After tying off the ends and snipping, I loaded a needle and thread to stitch up any areas that may have been missed and found only two small sections which sewed up quickly. When I was done, I showed my partner then threw it into the washing machine and subsequently the dryer. After taking it out I noticed two other small areas (all of these were less than an inch) that needed stitched up and immediately attended to those. I have to say, I really love how the fabric puckers and really makes those squares pop.

So after snapping a few pictures and being glad to have finished this project my mind immediately went to, “Well now what?” And that’s when I remembered I had bought a charm pack of Frolic while in line at the Country Manor quilt and fabric shop in Battle Ground. Hmmm… what can I make with that to coordinate with the quilt?