Fireside Cozy Finished

Oh, it feels good to put that last stitch in the binding and finish a quilt. This one was a long time coming, but I am happy to finally be done with it. I am getting more confident with my Sweet Sixteen and every quilt I stitch on it gets a little better than the one before. I quilted this in an overall meander pattern. My stitch length is more consistent and so was the size of the meandering. I am pleased with the results.

Fireside Cozy

I am so inspired by finishing Matthew's quilt top that I decided to get out a VERY OLD UFO and finish it. I get into a lot of trouble when my friends say "let's make this quilt together" because I start out all gung-ho to make a new quilt, then something happens and I have to stop for a while or I put it aside to hurry and finish another project and then I never go back to what I was working on. In the meantime, my friend has finished her quilt and is snuggling under it on a chilly evening. 

That's exactly what happened to me with Fireside Cozy. (pattern by Whimsicals) Pam said "this will be a fun and quick quilt to make", so I was suckered right in. But before I could finish the top, my first granddaughter was born and off I went. Since my son-in-law was deployed to Iraq at the time, I decided to stay with my daughter for a month to make sure she was comfortable with being a first-time mom. When I returned home I had a lot of catching up to do around the house and day-to-day life got in the way of my returning to this project......

Fast forward from 2003 to 2012!! (It really wasn't so fast!) My granddaughter will be 9 in a couple of months and five more have followed in her footsteps. Time had come to dust this quilt off and get it finished. I had 13 more blocks that needed to be sewn-and they were already cut and half assembled-a fast finish. I made quick work of the sewing the blocks into a quilt top and adding the pieced border.

I even stopped when I got to this point and used my scraps to make a mini quilt. The border on the big quilt is made by cutting 9 1/2 X 5" brown rectangles, and 3 1/2" red and light squares. You place a square in the corner of the rectangle and sew diagonally, trim the seam to 1/4" and then press the triangle to the corner. When I did this I was left with 60 brown, 30 red and 30 light triangles. Instead of throwing them in the trash, I stitched them up, squared them to 2 1/2" and made a 12X20" quilt. It is already quilted and bound!

Now, it's back to my Fireside Cozy quilt. I need to find some fabric to back it with, get it layered and quilted. I am so excited to get this UFO finished too!

Matt's Quilt

I feel SO good. I have finally finished Matthew's quilt top! I gave it to Judy to take home with her when she was here on Monday afternoon. In my excitement to have it finished, I forgot to take a picture of the finished top! Here is a picture with the first border on. It is on the floor in my quilt room-too big and heavy to fit on my design wall now. 

Judy has the quilt at her house now, loaded on her long arm and ready to be quilted. I can't wait to see how it looks when she is finished. We decided that a meander stitch was all the quilt needed. 

The colors of the quilt in Judy's photo are 

much more true to color than mine are! 

I will post a picture of Matthew with his quilt when it is quilted and bound. I am hoping to give it to him when he comes on Father's Day. Speaking of Matthew, he just proposed to his girlfriend on Monday night! We are so thrilled-we just love Elise and are excited to welcome her into our family.

The pattern that I used for Matthew's quilt was a free download on Andover Fabrics called Halfway Cafe. The original quilt finishes at 57X68", but I enlarged it to fit a deep queen mattress and made it 90X101".