Finish! Plume Quilt

The Plume Quilt is finally done! This makes three UFOs finished this summer and, believe it or not, I am down to three UFOs left! One uncompleted top, one completed top, which I've never blogged about before, and one partially quilted sandwich.
There is also the Rambling Roads quilt, but that one isn't a UFO. The top, back, and batting are prepared but not yet basted; I expect to finish that one this week.

This quilt is made from one Plume layer cake plus soft, brown corduroy and backed with a sheet. I'd say it's a generous twin size. Soon it's going to be making its way through the mail to its new home and you might get a chance to win it for yourself once it gets there, so I'll be letting you know about that!

The quilting is relatively light, with each block outlined and getting a few straight lines in this "woven" pattern. There was no single perfect choice for a thread color since the block vary in color and shade so wildly, but I settled on cream thread and I think it worked out.

I hope some little girl will by very happy sleeping under this quilt :)

Spring to Finish Challenge

I've decided to participate in Jacquie's Spring to Finish challenge. The deadline is May 31 and I'm aiming to get both NICU donation quilts done, the plume quilt done, rainbow strings done, couple of squares a completed top, and the body of the bargello sandwich quilted. Last night in a burst of motivation I finished the plume top and the Portals on Arabia quilt.

This top is about 66 X 77. It's supposed to be a twin, but looks fine an a full size bed. That lump in to the lower right is Wilson, by the way.

MIA

So I've been out of the loop for almost a week. Four consecutive all-day's at work plus my thesis deadline (Friday) have kept me busy and without much energy for quilting. I have decoratively hand quilted several more 'portals' on the NICU donation quilt I'm calling "Portals on Arabia." There are two left to go.
I tweaked the color to try and make the quilting show up better but the metallic threads in the linen just obscures it in the photo.

I turned a stack of 42 10" layer cake pieces into 42 of these 9.5" (plus sashing makes them 11.5") blocks over the last few days. I decided that I need to finish something or else I'm going to lose my quilting momentum; I haven't had a finish since the Whirligig quilt and all my current major projects are stalled due to factors beyond my control. I had already decided the I wanted to mimic this quilt with the Plume layer cake that I absolutely couldn't resist. It's not my normal style but I chose it because the Plume fabrics have such beautiful, large motifs I didn't want to chop it up. Plus it'll be a really quick finish and it will be nice to hold a freshly washed, completed quilt again.

The sashing is fine ribbed corduroy. I made sure that the ribbing runs long ways on all the strips so that it feels nice to pet. This is going to make a twin size quilt for a little girl and should be finished within the next week or so.

Wilson has been taken off crinkly ball probation and is enjoying his reward, as you can see.

PS- I wanted to share this post I ran across on Quilterblogs about a great thread and odd-and-ends storage system. I immediately made a trip to Walmart and found these double-sided plastic carry-alls in the hotwheels section, as promised. You can't get better sewing storage for a more reasonable price!

Lazy Sunday

I'm feeling sick today so I'm even less productive than usual. In quilting news, I received my Plume layercake yesterday and I'm super excited about it. These are my two favorite motifs.

I don't have any plans yet for the layercake, so in the meanwhile quilting continues on my whirligig baby quilt. As soon as I get Wilson off of it, that is...