Lollipop Washed and Life Goes On

 Yesterday I stayed home sick.  Kurt brought a hacking cough and noxious cold back from New Orleans and was nice enough to share.  I stayed snuggled up in bed with a good book and slept the morning away.  My friend Meisje who is an avid reader suggested  a new book which I am thoroughly enjoying.  She also suggested Sex Lives of Cannibals a couple of years ago, and that one was so funny.  I'm enjoying this one, it has a nice Forest Gump kind of simplicity that is very appealing.  I keep expecting each chapter to end with the main character saying, "And that's all I have to say about that."

 Today I got a redbox movie so I could sit down and sew the binding on Lollipop.  Lizzie didn't want to let me have my chair though, or my favorite t-shirt quilt.  I'm on the couch now, quiltless, listening to her happily snore the evening away. 

On the bright side though, Lollipop just came out of the dryer.  The raw edges of the quilt applique as you quilt circles are raveling nicely, giving the quilt a casual and comfortable feeling.  I was having tension issues during the quilting process, but they seemed to have resolved themselves in the wash.  I love the butterfly fabric that Sydney chose for the back.  I think it will go great with the butterfly pillowcase I made for her a couple of weeks ago. 

Lollipop Finshed

I was planning to cut a binding for Lollipop from the same fabric collection as the backing.  I took a quick peek in the extra binding drawer though, and there was plenty of binding already cut that would do the trick quite nicely.  So on it went and I'm calling it done.  As soon as the washer is free I'll pop it in and see what happens with the raw edge applique.  Wish me luck.

Quilt in a Day

 From start to finish, this truly was a quilt made today.  It is just a rectangular piece of background fabric with circles of fabric scattered.  The circles were cut with my Accuquilt GO cutter and then temporarily glue sticked down by my seven year old daughter. 

They were sewn on as the top was quilted on my HQ 16.  I'll have to attach the binding tomorrow, but other than that, it is done.  It isn't huge, but I think it will be a nice size for the kids to snuggle under on the couch during this cold snap we've been having.  I'm excited to get the binding done so that I can throw it into the wash and see how the edges fray.  This is my first foray into raw edge applique and I'm curious to see how it will turn out. 

Tangential Quilter

Last night Kurt was in bed by 8 (still recovery from his business trip), so after the kids were asleep I decided to catch up on ironing.  I went though most of the scrap basket and a couple of flimsies and some yardage that had come out of prewashing.  Taking advantage of daylight savings, I thought I'd use my extra hour last night instead of this morning.

My original plan for the morning was to cut up some more scraps with the GO.  I laid out all the dies and sorted everything out into stacks.  Instead of actually cutting anything though, I shot off on my first tangent of the day. 

Part of the ironing last night was four quadrants of a spinning star quilt that I was making for our bed.  Kurt requested something warmer for our harsh Florida winters, so I've been looking into ordering some wool batting (it's not something they sell here).  I pulled the sections out and was auditioning sashing colors when I stumbled across the fabric that I bought for a raw edge applique quilt I wanted to try out. 

I had already cut out circles from scraps, they just needed to be placed randomly onto the background fabric.  Sounds like a perfect job for a 7 year old.  Sydney was happy to be my quilt designer and helper for the morning.  She arranged the circles to her liking and then went back with a glue stick to make sure they would stay in place until they could get sewn down. Then she chose fabric for the back and binding, all while singing Lollipop. 

She is a pro on the handiquilter and was anxious to get to the quilting part.  It's the first time I've used it since the new carpet though, so it still needed a little set up and adjustment.  By the time the quilt was loaded and ready to go, her 7 year old attention span had been spent and I had to go find her to help with the sewing.  I've never done raw edge applique before, so I'm a little anxious about how it will turn out after the wash, but time will tell.  I did a little spiral in the circles, staying about a quarter inch from the edge and then filled in the background with swirlies.  It's not quite done yet, because the afternoon was booked solid.  I'm debating now whether to go finish it or just call it a night.  First though, I'll go take a peek at what other people got done over the weekend.