Back to School/Sewing

I have a finish! This is exceptional since I worked all week and feel like a zombie. I added the final borders yesterday, made the label, pinned it, machine quilted it, and bound it. I pieced this quilt in late July and early August because I wanted to make orange peels like I was seeing all over blog land. I thought it would make a good baby quilt, but really did not have a specific recipient in mind...

I attended a charity board meeting on Monday night and saw one of my fellow board members. She is expecting a baby girl in October. I asked her about the nursery and she said she had lots of natural wood, a throw rug in bright colors, and she had painted little orange accents throughout the room (Her house is also a 100+ year old Victorian). I immediately thought of my Rainbow Orange Peel flimsy.

Initially, I had bought this fabric, Soire'e by Lula Tueller of Moda, for the backing. It was a flat fold for $5 a yard, I will use it for something else eventually. Instead I decided to embrace her orange and  to use an orange with white pin dots I had bought in June from Connecting Threads for $2.50 a yard. I only had two and a half yards, so I added this blue print from my stash and was able to use every bit of the orange with white pin dot for the binding. Between the orange pin dot fabric and Wonder Under I bought to make the orange peels, I only spent $15 on this quilt. Everything else was from my scrap bins and stash.

I just quilted around the orange peels using my walking foot on my Pfaff. I considered echo stitching again on the inside, but I decided there was enough quilting.

 I made a quick label and machine bound it. I also added a hanging sleeve in case she decides to hang it. I washed it this morning and just took these pictures out in my pasture. It measures 44 x 52 inches, so it is a decent size. I plan on giving it to her at our next meeting on September 8th. She is pretty eclectic, so I think she will love the scrappiness of it! I entered it in this quilt-a-long over at Quilty Habit, so be sure and check out the others here
http://quiltyhabit.blogspot.com/2014/08/orange-peel-qal-final-linky-party.html

 I also managed to get some slow stitching in this week after work. My oatmeal sashing on my Quilty Stitches is coming along and setting off the cross stitched blocks. The pattern for the last block came out on Monday, but I have not started on it yet. It is Sunday, so I will keep working on this for Slow Sunday Stitching be sure to get inspired with what others are working on here http://www.kathysquilts.blogspot.ca

My fat quarter bundle of Miss Kate from Bonnie and Camille of Moda arrived in the mail yesterday! I ordered it at the beginning of June with some birthday money.

Recently I have been collecting Bonnie and Camille fabric without knowing what I will make with it. I just know I have to have it! I hope to keep making some progress on my quilting while getting back into the groove of work...