agilejack

Had a good sleep in this morning. It felt so good after so many early mornings this last week. After a good breakfast and a strong cup of coffee and a few snuggles with Bender and Rico, I headed off to a local Quilt store to pick up the quilts I had one of the workers there bind for me.

While I was there I picked up a couple half yards of Australian Aboriginal prints to line the two Frankenbags I’ll make from the trimmings from my living room quilt.

Those will be some bold linings! I’m a firm believer that the lining of a bag is no place to scrimp! If. you look a the very bottom right of that bag body, you’ll see both of those fabrics.

I played pickleball after the fabric store and I had a blast! I played really well… I was aggressive and agile and played really hard. Several people commented on how well I was playing. I won nearly every game this afternoon. I was a sweaty mess when I was done.

When I got home I pulled out the quilts I had picked up to take a gander. And I have to say, I’m really happy with the job she did. They are finished beautifully!

It was especially wonderful to see this quilt done because it gave me such fits when I was sewing the top together.

I like that little big of orange and pink binding on that field of back and white.

I’m happy to see the whole picture on this one and am so glad it’s all done!

I really love that backing. It’s so cheerful.

Here are the other four quilts.

On this one the binding is the same as the baking fabric.

Same with this one. The purple binding is also on the back.

Mmmmm. I love all that orange.

This purple and red one was the one my friend and I made a couple summers ago when she was visiting. It’s about time this is done.

So much red.

And the last one is the one that I’ve had sitting around the longest. I really love this little quilt.

It poured all day again today. We’ve gotten close to two more inches of rain this weekend. Luckily, it cleared up after dinner tonight and I was able to get my boys and myself out for a nice walk. It was still really wet out there even though no rain was falling.

Busy week of work coming up. And when I’m able to I’ll be playing pickleball. It really helps me deal with the stress of work. It’s so good for me.

I’ve had several early mornings this week and had to be on the job before 7 am today. That’s a terrible way to start a Saturday. But I was done by 10 am and was quickly on my way to Molalla in the rain for Rico’s sheep herding lesson.

It poured all the way there. We lucked out and had pretty good weather during our lesson. But it was damned wet out there!

I make a habit of always having my rubber boots in my car. Even in the summer. You never know when you’re going to need them in the Pacific Northwest.

Rico did an amazing job! Our teacher gave us a little course to run and Rico did such an amazing job! He was so happy and enthusiastic, yet cool and collected.

And when we were done we did a little actual work and moved the sheep we had been working into a pen for the afternoon.

He loves this so much! It’s really what he was meant to do. It’s really fun to see his training in a practical application.

After another rainy drive home I grabbed some lunch … scrambled eggs and toast! I was chilled and it was warm and comforting.

Then I did a little housework in prep for my friend’s arrival in a little over a week. I got the bed in the guest room made and got the room dusted and vacuumed. So that room is ready for company. Then I tidied up the living room so all I need to do there is dust and vacuum. Then I dug out about 20 large bags of old dog treats that were all expired between 2018 and 2022!!! I can’t even imagine what that all cost me. I’m trying to be much more conservative in my dog treat buying habits now. Sheesh!

One thing I tidied up in my living room was the fabric and batting left over from having my living room quilt finished. So while I was dealing with the batting, I decided to go ahead and cut it to make quilt sandwiches for a couple of the Frankenbag panels I made from the pieces I trimmed from that quilt a few weeks ago.

I got the two quilt sandwiches finished and even managed to quilt these two pieces.

I decided that this needed to be quilted with black thread. It’s nearly impossible to see the black thread on that black fabric so I’m sure it’s wonkier than usual. But if I can’t see it, I would doubt anyone else can.

Once the two panels were quilted I trimmed them to size and cut out the corners for the gussets.

I stopped there and fed the dogs and myself some dinner. Then I realized that the rain was sort of light so we headed out for a two mile walk before it got dark.

The rhododendrons are so gorgeous right now.

These blooms were enormous! And they had the most beautiful pale pink in the centers.

Look at this gorgeous pink one!

I had never seen a rhododendron in person until I moved to Portland. And they are everywhere here! So many different colors and sizes.

I think this deep orange one is a variety of azalea. It’s really striking. The blooms on this one are MUCH larger than on the regular azaleas.

There are so many trees in bloom still. The dogwoods are fading a little but they aren’t done yet. You can smell the lovely aroma of the blooms in the air. This red horse chestnut tree is one of my favorites in the neighborhood.

When we got home I decided to hit my sewing room again and make the handles for the bag panels I quilted earlier. I was happy to find the pieces already cut to size in my sewing room closet.

I usually use brown vinyl for my handles but this bag was screaming for black,

Since I had gotten that far I went ahead and sewed the outer bag together.

Here’s the other side.

It’s really fun to see the trimmings from that quilt come together in such a random bag. I really like it. Now I just need to decide what to line it with.

I might go ahead and make up the two other panels I made from those trimmings before I make the linings and pockets and finish both bags.

I’m going to go pick up five quilts from a woman who has hand-finished the bindings for me. I found her at a local quilt store a few weeks ago. These are the five quilts that I traded quilting for finished quilt tops last summer. I’m pretty happy I found someone to do the bindings for me. I love a hand finished binding but my hands just can’t take the wear and tear. I have to save them for pickleball!

After the visit to the fabric store I’m going to play pickleball. I’m signed up to play at one place and am on the waiting list for another place. Both at 1:00. I’m really hoping I move off the waiting list at the second place because that’s really where I want to play. Fingers crossed.

I hope to get a little more house keeping done tomorrow and I would like to get one half of my Brandon leftover quilt sewn up. I also need to see if I can find some kind of top for my trip to Vegas in ten days. Working from home does not keep your professional wardrobe up to snuff!

A week ago today I got a text from my long arm quilter, Happy Rock Quilting, letting me know that my Australian Aboriginal Fabric Libby quilt was done and ready for me to pick up. I texted back, “can I come out right now?” She said she was just on the way to the gym so said to come by around 7 pm.

I always love seeing my quilt unfurled at my long arm quilter’s place. it’s like Christmas! Seeing all the glory of a finished quilt for the first time. I love the way it transforms the top. All that texture, the binding, all that work coming together. I just love it .

And tonight I finally pulled it out of the bag to get it onto my sofa where it will reside.

It makes me so happy to see all that luscious color in my living room! I love the way it pulls the colors out of that portrait of my Forrest behind the sofa. I loved the quilt I had here previously, but it’s positively bland compared to this one.

The quilting pattern on this is called Malachite. It’s sort of a wobbly spiral. It’s pretty perfect for this quilt.

I usually choose a light gray thread for my bright quilts because it sort of disappears on the vibrant prints. But this quilt was screaming for black thread. I’m so glad I went with that option.

I love the way it’s visible on some fabrics and completely disappears on others.

The thread and quilting disappears on the black backing.

I pay my long arm quilter to finish the bindings for me as well because my hands just can’t take all that hand sewing. I need to save my hands for pickleball!

I did actually spend a little bit of time in my sewing room this morning before I headed out for Pickleball. I sewed two rows of my Brandon Leftover quilt together.

That’s about all I could muster. I did also sew a two inch seam to repair my friend’s dog’s favorite toy. That nearly did me in. I want to get this off my design wall so I can start my black and white Interweave quilt.

The dogwood trees are in all their glory here right now. This one is really special.

The azaleas are also blooming.

These two good boys enjoyed their walk this afternoon.

Back to work tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy couple weeks. Our spring radio fundraising drive starts later this week.

Things are finally calming down a little. After my friend’s visit I had a hectic week of work getting my budgets done. I submitted them almost a week ago and it’s a huge relief to have that complicated and stressful task done.

My friend closed on her house here in the Portland area and will be here again before you know it. We’re looking forward to more pickleball together.

I haven’t spent much time in my sewing room over the last week. I really thought I’d do some sewing over the weekend but it just didn’t happen. I have been making a tweak or two to my Brandon Leftover quilt blocks here and there. I think I am close to the final lay out and may start working on getting these blocks sewn together soon.

And now that I see this photo here, I see a couple of things I want to tweak. I’m not in a hurry to get this done but I am going to need that design wall before long.

I’ve been playing with all the black and white fabrics on my sewing table to get the right nine fabrics for my black and white Interweave quilt. I think I’ve finalized the black and white fabrics and I have a fabric in mind for the background. I might not have enough of it so may have to have a plan B.

I’ve been noodling a little about what Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics to use for the vertical woven strips for this black and white quilt. I thought I might go with the color way approach from this quilt.

So I pulled some of the left over fabrics from this quilt, plus a few others from my stash, and started playing. I ended up with this array, sort of arranged with the oranges on the left and moving toward purples on the right.

I need seven fabrics for the vertical strips. So next, I started removing fabrics that I didn’t like. One had too much turquoise. One was too light. One read too solid. One just felt completely wrong. And I soon had separated this stack into the ones I wanted to keep (bottom) and the ones that would go back in my stash (the top row).

I like this selection I’m left with. I might need to open up a couple of these fabrics and look at them all with the large prints in mind to see if they work in the larger context.

But I’m liking what I’m seeing here.

I love the oranges, pinks and purples together.

We’ve had some gorgeous weather. Almost too nice for April. It’s been warm and sunny. it should be rainy. We are getting a few days of rain and I’m glad to see it come back. At least for a while.

I found out yesterday that I have to fly to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks for work. My friend Linda will fly up here and stay with my dogs while I’m gone and we’ll get to spend a few days together when I’m back. I can’t tell you why I’m going to Vegas, but I will let you know when it’s all over. It will be a quick trip.

I got to have my last visit with my friend’s Australian shepherd puppies last weekend.

And my friend decided which one she’s keeping.

She’s a real cutie and will be called Jane.

Rico, as always, was happy to get out and spend some time on the farm.

Me too!

Since I have all these blocks done and up on my design wall I thought I’d write up some instructions for making these blocks.

I’m calling this my Brandon Left Over quilt because the fabrics are almost all Brandon Mably designs are are left over from the Interweave quilt I made recently.

These Brandon Leftover quilt blocks are made from my Blue Swirly tutorial with a few minor variations. Please take a look at that tutorial for full cutting and construction details.

Ok. Have you read it? Then read on.

Variations:

Sashing strips: Made from black and white Sharks Teeth fabric. Instead of cutting the sashing strips to 1.5 inches wide I cut them 1-3/4 inches wide. This quarter inch shows a little more of the wave of the fabric design which helps create the wavy effect of the black and white portions of the quilt top.

When sewing the sashing strips onto the center fabrics I made sure to have all the points of the sharks teeth pointing away from the main fabric. I’m not sure this makes a difference in that wavy effect, but I love little details like this!

Corner Triangles: Instead of using the sharks teeth for the triangles I used Brandon Mably’s comb stripe in black and white. It’s a hand painted stripe so there is some really lovely irregularity in the design. I cut these blocks in the same size and method as I cut the sharks teeth for the blue swirly quilt. To get the swirly effect where the four corners of the blocks meet it’s critical to follow the instructions for cutting these squares carefully.

To achieve this with the black and white stripes used in place of the sharks teeth, stack up your squares with the right side of the fabric of all squares facing up and the stripes all aligned horizontally. Then cut the squares in half diagonally with the ruler going from the lower left to the upper right, indicated by the red dotted line in this photo.

Once cut, every triangle should be the same… with the lines of the stripe running in the same direction and orientation across the triangles. If they are not the same, you will not achieve the swirly pattern where the blocks meet.

I did cut the squares to the same size as in the Blue Swirly tutorial even though I added that extra quarter inch to the sashing strips. This left me plenty of fabric to trim away when I squared up the blocks.

If you want to be more efficient in squaring up and waste less fabric, I would suggest you try some different size squares for the corners and make a full block with scrap fabric to see if it squares up well. You could try decreasing the squares by a quarter or half inch before you cut them in half diagonally and sew the pieces together.

I’m comfortable with a little more fabric to trim away because it’s easier to square up the blocks and it takes less time to fiddle with a smaller margin of error.

This is a quick and easy quilt to make. I made mine 8 blocks by 10 blocks and it will end up being a nice throw quilt about 64 inches wide and 80 inches tall.

Have fun and experiment! Enjoy these close up photos.

My last blog post was a week ago. It’s been a busy week and I’ve enjoyed my time away from my sewing room. I actually feel like I’m ready to get back in there, although not with the same frenzy as the first three months of 2024.

Since I wrote last I spent most of that week with my friend visiting as she finished up the purchase of her new home. It was a hectic week for her and, lucky for me, she was able to find time to play pickleball! We played Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, Monday night, Tuesday morning and Thursday morning. The only day we didn’t play was Wednesday since my friend spent most of the day with her new home inspection.

We had so much fun playing pickleball together! She was really excited to get to meet some of my pickleball friends and to see all the places she will be able to play pickleball near her new home. Plus, we had some really fun and enthusiastic games. It’s going to be so much fun to have an old friend here to plays pickleball AND is a quilter! Although not as obsessed as I am. But we did discover that we play well as a doubles team!

I played Pickleball yesterday morning and played terribly! Then I helped with a pickleball clinic for kids with Down syndrome. Today I helped with a clinic for brand new Pickleball adults. And those two sessions have exhausted me. It might be a break to get back to work tomorrow.

I did finally hit my sewing room after dinner and a quick trip to the post office tonight. I got my Brandon leftover blocks all sorted and shuffled …

…and up on my design wall. This is a pretty fun little quilt top! I really wish the photos could show what it looks like in person!

I’m not sure I’m going to change much with this arrangement. I’ll leave it up on the wall for a couple days before I decide if this is final.

It really made a big difference to add that extra quarter inch to the sharks teeth strips.

One last piece of eye candy…

I’m also quite close to finalizing the selection of black and white fabrics and the order they’ll appear in the quilt top in my next Interweave quilt.

I may replace the whitest one, third from the right. It might feel too white with the rest of the fabrics. I’ll have to see how I feel about it when I select my background and accent fabrics. I still have to decide what bright accent fabrics I’ll combine with these black and whites. It will likely be Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics, but I’ll have to decide if I want to go with a monochromatic approach or if I’ll mix it up. We’ll see how I feel about it when I get some time to pull some options.

The last few days have been so glorious here in Portland. I had to go into the office last night and caught a beautiful sunset.

In my yard the first set of bloomers are gone and we’re onto the next set. My lilacs have just opened up this weekend and it’s gorgeous! I love my lilac bush.

My apple tree is in full bloom. If the number of blooms is any indication I’ll have a bumper crop later this summer.

My snowball tree is covered with little chartreuse snowballs. They will be fluffy and white in no time.

The tulips around the neighborhood are pretty glorious right now.

And there was one big event on April 9. This guy celebrated his 11th birthday.

It’s so hard to believe that Bender is 11! I’m starting to notice the years on him but HE refuses to believe he’s 11.

It’s going to be a hectic week at work as my FY 25 budget is due on Friday. Budgeting is not my favorite part of my job but it’s necessary.

Luckily it’s going to be a gorgeous week and I might just spend some of my work time on the patio.

It’s been a week. work has been a little nuts. Since my last post I haven’t spent much time in my sewing room and I’m ok with that.

I got a message yesterday from my friend who visited last summer. She’s the one who recently retired and has been looking for a property in my area for their retirement. They’ve been looking for around eight months and there haven’t been very many houses on the market. Well, there was a new listing and her agent wanted her to fly up to see it.

She arrived this morning. I was supposed to play pickleball but the rain put an end to that. So Instead I hightailed it out to the property she was coming to see and met her and her agent there to walk the property and see the house.

To make a long story short, she now has an offer accepted on that house! She’s so excited about it. it’s a really lovely house and property in a great area.

She is a friend of mine that I’ve known for years through dogs. The she got into quilting, and she started playing pickleball at about the same time I did. All of this at an 800 mile difference.

It’s going to be so fun to have a pickleball, quilting, doggie friend in the area! We’re going to play pickleball tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday! She leaves Thursday.

I did feel a spark of oomph and hit my sewing room last night for just a few minutes to pull some black and white fabrics. I’ve been thinking I might strike out on a black and white with a little color version o the interweave quilt. There is a black and white version on the pattern cover.

Here’s the ten fabrics I pulled from my black and white stash.

I’m pretty happy with this initial pull but it’s entirely possible I may make some changes. The accent strips that will interweave with these fabrics will likely be Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics in a limited color way. But I still haven’t decided what color… red? Orange? Pink? turquoise? Purple? It will be interesting to see where this lands. I’ll also need to decided on a background fabric. I’m thinking a low volume black and white with very little pattern. I’ll have to see what’s in my stash.

I did sort out my Brandon Leftover blocks by color, approximately. it’s hard to decide what color some of these are!

Now I need to sort of shuffle them up and get them up on the design wall.

While my friend and her realtor talked this morning I hit a small quilt shop in the area. I bought a few pieces of fabric. Not very much. My friend joined me there when they were done. Then we visited a nearby pickleball court area and headed off to another local quilt store on the way back to my area. I bought one piece of black and white batik and this KFC glasses case.

The store has had these for awhile and I saw on Instagram that they had received another shipment. So I decided to dive I and finally get one!

We did grab an early dinner before we headed back to my place. My friend got the good news about her offer being accepted in early evening. It was so exciting!

It’s been a pretty rainy week. But there were moments of brilliance.

It looks like we have some dry, yet cloudy weather coming up.

With all the creative drive I’ve had so far in 2024 I’ve been thinking I’ll probably see a dry spell coming before too long. I think I might be entering that dry spell.

I haven’t been in my sewing room the last two nights. I was going to get in there tonight and start sorting my Brandon leftover blocks and get them up on my design wall but I got busy with other stuff and lost my oomph.

So with what feels like a dry spell looming I have several quilts I’ve been thinking about making but I don’t have one that I’m itching to start next. So I’m making a list of things I SHOULD do while my creative juices are rebuilding. Plus some quilts I’ve been thinking about.

1. I should finish the bags that will be made from the four panels I made from the strips trimmed away from my Aboriginal Libby quilt.

2. I should add the borders to the quilt for my guest room that has been in a state of incompleteness for far too long. I should also make the backing for this quilt and get ready to take it to my long arm quilter.

3. I should do something with all these blocks I made about a year ago. I had planned to go with a color wash approach but sort of lost interest in that. I had another idea recently and think I might go with that instead.

Thinking I might do a sashing treatment with the indigo batiks left over from my Wensleydale quilt. There a lot of left overs!

4. I’ve wanted to make a Gridlock quilt. It’s in one of the Kaffe Fassett books I have. This first photo is Kaffe Fassett during a critique of quilts in a Gridlock workshop. The second one is the quilt from the book.

I’ve been thinking it might be fun to make this out of a selection of batiks I’ve had set aside for some time.

5. I can choose to make the red version of my blue swirly quilt. Hmmm. Looking at that photo of the reds makes me think this is a good place to start!

6. I SHOULD finish this Australian Aboriginal scrappy trip quilt but I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for it. It just feels so drab in the photos. It’s better in person when you can see all the detail in the fabrics.

I like the idea of finishing up some UFOs when I’m not feeling particularly creative. it’s a good time to dig in and be productive while I wait for my creative juices to start flowing again.

Our beautiful streak of weather is coming to an end as the rain approaches. I’ve really enjoyed the last few days of sun and warm temps. I took my good boys for a walk late this afternoon and the sun felt so good on my face and on my back. It was so wonderful.

And tonight these boys are worn out.

I played pickleball this morning indoors and had an absolute blast. It was me and nine men. I’m pretty sure that I was one of the top two players in that group. My coach had asked me to focus on controlling all my shots… being careful to place them where it made it difficult for my opponents to return them. I kept that in my mind as I played and felt so good about how I did! I think I won five out of the 8 games I played and two of the ones I didn’t win were still going on when the timer went off. Some really great games.

I’m scheduled to play pickleball tomorrow night outdoors and than Thursday morning indoors. It’s a good pickleball week!

I slept in a little this morning after being up early the last three days. It felt good to sleep until after 9 am. After breakfast and some strong coffee I was off to my long arm quilter to pick up my friend’s Australian Aboriginal quilt and deliver my Aboriginal Libby quilt for her to quilt.

My friend’s quilt turned out great!

It’s such a simple design that really lets these gorgeous prints shine.

And the backing is just yummy.

The quilting design is sort of spirals with bubbles.

Here’s a little eye candy.

I ran a couple errands while I was out. When I got home I played with Bender and Rico in the back yard for a while then hit my sewing room.

I decided to dig in and make some Frankenbag panels out of the strips I cut off my Aboriginal Libby quilt yesterday. I knew that if I didn’t get it done right away those scarps would sit in a drawer for years.

(Wondering what a Frankenbag is? Check out my tutorial and make your own!)

I had more than enough to make four bag panels. They are very free form and interesting with all the diagonal lines. I think they will look really cool quilted and sewn into bags.

There are only some small pieces left over. I’m glad I got this quick task done.

Then it was time to take my boys for a nice three mile walk in the sunshine. It felt good to get out. When we got home I ordered some dinner to pick up later and hit my sewing room again and finished up the last of the four panels.

Before I had to go and pick up my dinner I decided to press my green quilt again. I was concerned that the edges were a little wavy when it was on the design wall and I was afraid I had stretched out all those bias edges. So I pressed it using some fabric stabilizer.

It all actually laid out nice and flat on my ironing board so I’m not worried about it being wavy any more. I think it was just on the design wall in a wonky way. I didn’t want to manipulate it too much and deform it. It’s now folded and hanging over my sewing room chair to make sure it dries out completely before I fold it and put it in the closet.

After dinner I had another play session with my boys. This photo was taken at around 7:30! I’m so happy to see the light come back to my evenings!

It was a beautiful sky tonight.

After that final play session I hit my sewing room again to start squaring up my Brandon leftover blocks.

Thought I’d probably only get about half of them squared up but it went so fast that I finished all 80 blocks!

All I have to do now is shuffle them up and toss them up on the design wall! This has been one fast little quilt!

I’d better start thinking about what I’m going to make next.

Back to work tomorrow. We have some nice weather coming up. Looks like spring may have arrived after all.

Day two of lambs on Saturday started with feeding the ewes with their lambs. Even the little lambs are loving their grain!

Once everyone was fed I took Rico to move some sheep from a small pen near the barn to a large pasture in the back of the property where they could enjoy some fresh spring grass all day.

It was such a spectacular day!!! What a great day to spend with lambs, dogs, puppies and friends!

Once we had the morning chores done we headed up to the back pasture to see if any lambs were born over night. We drove through looking in the trees to see if there are ewes with babies under cover. And there they were…

Three ewes had a total of five lambs. Two sets of twins and a singleton. We got busy getting them all loaded up in the lamb wagon. This little one’s mom was nervous so my friend had me hold her on a piece of twine so the mom would stay close. If we had put this lamb in the lamb wagon while we caught the other lambs she may have been too stressed and would have joined the flock of pregnant ewes.

The mom stuck around while we got the other lambs loaded up and then this little lamb went in last.

There are five newborn lambs in that crate! So we were off to the barn with moms following along.

Wyatt the Australian shepherd helped keep everyone moving and Isaac the guard dog came along to be part of the action.

We got them all taken care of right away with ear tags, banding tails and castrating the males and had them in their pasture for time to continue bonding with their moms.

After getting those lambs and moms all settled we spent some quality time with PUPPIES!

They were wrestling and growling and having a blast!

One last puppy photo…

My friend had to make a run to the airport in Portland next so while she was gone I did some more work with Rico on a few sheep. He was brilliant again!!!

Then a quick dip to Rico cool off.

After eating the delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwich I brought along we headed down the road to some logging company land to have a nice stroll In the trees.

These boys do love an opportunity to run free.

We walked about two miles then headed back to let Rico work the sheep one more time before my friend returned.

It was almost 3:00 by that time so we made another swing through the pasture with the pregnant ewes to see if anyone had lambed and there were no new lambs. But there was one ewe who was clearly in the process so we split her and three others off from the flock and had Wyatt help us get them down to a paddock near the barn with the lambs we had picked up earlier in the day. We left the mom in labor there and took the other three ewes back up to the pasture. Trudy let me know this evening that the ewe had twins!

I was on my way home at around 4:00 and was so tired! It was such a gorgeous day! Look at this!!!

Days spent lambing are two of the best days of the year! It’s spring! There are adorable lambs everywhere. I get to do things I’ve never done before And I get to do some physical work and spend the day outside in a beautiful place! Nothing wrong with any of that. Oh, and there were puppies this year!

I played pickleball this morning then headed home to start checking stuff off my to-do list. I did get my tax materials all put together and off to my accountant.

I also got my Aboriginal Libby quilt trimmed… first I marked a cutting line, then stitched inside that line, then cut the excess fabric away.

All those cut edges are on the bias so I used the line of stitching to keep everything in place.

There is enough fabric cut off to make one or two bags. It will not go to waste.

Once that was done I measured the quilt and calculated how big my backing needed to be and then dug in on that final project… a project I detest! I had it measured, cut, sewn and pressed in no time.

I was able to make the backing with fabric running across the width. Two widths will be enough.

And since someone will ask, here’s the info on that backing fabric.

My friend Linda gave me that fabric for Christmas. It was intended for this quilt. The trimmed quilt top, backing and binding fabric are all folded and packaged and ready to head off to my long arm quilter tomorrow.

After visiting my long armer tomorrow I hope to get my strawberry tank soil boosted with some compost I bought and then I’ll plant my new strawberry plants. After that, I’ll have a lot of time to square up the rest of my Brandon Leftover blocks.

Happy Easter!