Mini Pumpkins Done

 

The Mini Pumpkins quilt was put together and all ready and layered for quilting.

And so I quilted it, nothing too fancy, but done.

I decided to use on of the background fabrics for the binding.

I got it sewn on quickly.

And that's all done now.

Okay, done, just in time to show it at Sew Day for the #5 UFO Challenge. Now on to doing #3, which is my Bohemian Wife quilt...a real challenge.

6x6 Finished

 

Well, 6x6 is now officially finished and even more importantly: LeeLoo-Approved™.

I used self-threading needles to bury my thread ends. There weren't a lot of them as I went from edge to edge with the quilting lines.

There it is, all finished, but not yet washed. Consider this the before picture.

Here it is post-washing. So much more texture, but not too much due to pre-washing the fabrics used. 

There's a side-view of the quilt surface.

And that's my #6 done for the CQFA UFO Challenge, hooray!

Ocean Effect Finish

 

As promised, here is a finally really finished just-in-time picture of my latest quilt finish, Ocean Effect. It is now all turned in and ready to display in the Bay Area Modern Quilting group exhibition: Modern Art to Modern Quilt at the San Mateo County Fair - June 5-14th.

Ocean Facings

Time for facings on Ocean Efect.

for the top facing I used a strip of my green hand-dye that matches the top green color strip.

This is how it looks with the facings pinned, I'll post a final picture when I get the hand sewing done and iron the edges.
 I'll be turning this in tomorrow at the BAMQ exhibit.

Kawandi Finish

 

Since I got back from LA, I've been continuing to stitch the kawandii quilt. My goal was to finish in time for the BAMGQ UFO Challenge which is due on our Sew Day (which is today).

As I got closer and closer to the center I had to finalize it, added two last pieces into the mix, right before the stitching reached that area of the quilt.

I found the stitching got harder and harder to do as I got into the center. 

The pieces got smaller so there were a lot more edges to contend with and that meant more layers of silk to stitch through.

It has been a fun and challenging project and I’ve really enjoyed learning a new way to make a quilt. I started working on this project in a SBMQG class with Sujata Shah back in 2021

Here it is, all finished! 

I ended my last stitching line with an X just because, "x marks the spot" has always made sense to me.

The corners got a little ravel-y, but they're still looking nice. As Sujata said in class, "the Kawandi looks "naked" without a fula in each of the four corners."

And that's #2 on my BAMQ UFO Challenge list completed just in time to show at Sew Day.

Quilt Gift Given

It was our 36th anniversary the other day, so I finally got to give my DH his present!

The City Sampler is on our bed and it's lovely.

His comment was that he always wanted to sleep under a rainbow.

Hooray! Now it truly feels like a quilt finish.
 

City Sampler Final Photo

Tah-dah, here it is, my now-completed City Sampler. It was much too big for my design wall and my work room as you can see. Get ready for a whole lot of pictures so you can see some of the details.

I made the 100 blocks in Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks book way back in 2016 out of Tula Pink fabrics and my own hand-dyed cotton fabrics. 

I designed the outer border and am quite pleased with how it turned out.

It took a lot of figuring, and sketching, but it was worth it to make the quilt big enough for our bed.

The rest is all gray(s) but of course not just one because of...reasons. 

Turns out keeping track of solids is Very Hard because there's no printed selvedge. 

We live--we learn, right? 

And here's what the back looks like. I love love love that snake.

The blocks sat around finished for quite a while, and then I went to a CQFA retreat in January 2020  (four years!) where I sewed the grey sashing to one side of a lot of the blocks but not all of them. 

Then they sat around a little longer (four years!) before I went to a BAMQ retreat in 2024 and I sewed the rest of the sashing onto the blocks, and then sewed most of the blocks into rows. 

The rest of the assembly and then the making of the backing took a while too. The backing got started in  July 2025. 

Then later that month, I finished the backing, the binding and eventually I turned it over for the fabulous quilting is by the wonderful long-armer Colleen Granger. 

Then this week, I finally sewed down the binding and today was the pinning up and photographing. What a long, drawn-out process this was! In the end, this might be the quilt I'm most pleased with that I've ever made. Don't tell my DH, but it's going to be the anniversary gift this year. And as I said yesterday, a project to take off of my 2026 UFO Finishes Challenge list.

City Sampler Done

 

Back at the machine for binding sewing on the last three sides of City Sampler.

I pinned and then sewed pretty slowly and it turned out very well. For bed quilts, I like to do a machine stitched binding for extra security. I guess I just don't trust my hand-sewing skills to stick around through many machine washes.

Approaching the final corner! Woohoo! I am so excited to have this quilt done after so many years. I made the blocks back in 2016, so I suppose this is "right on schedule," ten years later. As City Sampler is the Biggest Quilt that I've ever made, I am definitely not giving myself a hard time about how long this took me to complete. 

And even better, this is another one of my UFO Finishing Challenge projects that I get to cross off this month.

Now to take a final picture, which will be quite an undertaking, as this quilt is almost exactly the size of my Entire Design Wall. Not today though, which is the day after Arm-Day at the gym. If you know, you know, it's better to put it off a day.

May You Ever Return - Finished

 

I finished the hand-stitching over the word SMILE.

I zig-zagged over the word REMEMBER

and now it is a lot closer to non-contrasty than before.

Time for trimming and facing.

Tah-dah! All done! I'm honestly shocked. But very very pleased.  Oh the power of a group deadline....