Row Along Finish & Clementine Blocks 2

I finished my Bee In My Bonnet Row Along Quilt. This was my OMG for February. It was a UFO from July 2013. 

http://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2018/02/one-monthly-goal-february-finish-link-up.html

I finally took the plunge and decided on my borders--a thinner version of the outer pieced border on Lori Holt's design. I made mine a finished three inch instead of six inches. Mine is 58 x 72 inches!

 The backstory on this quilt is I started it soon after I started blogging in 2013. I had gotten frustrated with a lack of modern quilting in my local area and I turned to the internet and blogs to inspire me. I discovered Lori Holt's Bee In My Bonnet blog. At that time this was a still available on her blog as a series of tutorials. I competed all of the rows in a couple of weeks and organized all of my scraps by color--the modern scrappy style has become my favorite.

 Then, I hit a wall and could not make a decision about borders. It languished in a plastic tub for several years. I even taught a BOM class for this quilt in 2016, but did not finish my own.

I did buy a turquoise fabric with the borders in mind and I picked up a red fabric for the backing.

 I love the red backing even though it was not a smart choice. The first time I washed it with four Color Catchers and they came out very pink. The red backing seemed to have bled along the quilting where the label was located. I washed it again with more Color Catchers and the pink on the Color Catchers was lighter, but the bleeding remained.

I ended up soaking the quilt in a very hot bubble bath of half a cup of Dawn Clear Dish Soap for over 12 hours.  It seemed to do the trick and I washed it again with several Color Catchers and they came out white. Success-into the dryer it went!

Here is an up close of my label and the quilting. I struggled with how to quilt it. I wish I could afford to have my quilts professionally quilted, but that is not in my budget and long arming it myself is usually not very successful. I decided to embrace the motto- Done Is Better Than Perfect and quilt it horizontally with my Pfaff's large wavy stitch an inch apart. Since the focus is on the blocks themselves, I think the quilting actually works really well. 

I may even get my Bee Happy Appliqué Quilt prepped to quilt it this way. What do you think? This one needs to be finished too. #ufoslayer

I have also been keeping up with the Clementine Quilt Along--here are my Blocks for February. This quilt is going to be spectacular! You can find the block directions here and don't forget this is a fundraiser for St. Jude!

https://blog.fatquartershop.com/clementine-quilt-along.html

I am still working on binding for my friend and that will be my Slow Sunday Stitching

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/2018/02/slow-sunday-stitching_25.html