TGIFF Hosting - Kelly's "Be Attitudes" is finished!!

Hi! Welcome to this week's "Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday" link-up! Have you finished something this week that you'd like to share? Link up at the bottom of this post, and be sure to visit a few links to help your quilting peers celebrate their finishes.  :D

I'm super happy to report a long-term UFO finish - my cousin Kelly's Be Attitudes quilt:

This is a Nancy Halvorsen pattern, and I'm guessing Kelly made the top in 2007, maybe 2008. It's one of the last quilts she worked on before she died. I've been madly quilting it up for a wedding gift to send to her nephew, since I know she would have made them a quilt.

This is one of my Q3 Finish Along pieces (My goal post link)

I love this quilt. It's a terrific example of the traditional side of things, with the calico-like fabrics and almost-primitive applique work. Kelly had the best hand-worked blanket stitches. They're so even, and she had a wonderful sense of scale with them. I stitched-in-the-ditch on all the black stitches, put some bits of detail-quilting on each block, then free-motion quilted the rest of the center with a leafy-ribbon sort of motif. 

This was the first time I pinned a binding on to attach it -
part of the effort to tame the waves spoken of later.

Borders got some strictly-organic free-motion work of leafy "feathers," ribbon swirls, and hearts. I had to stay away from anything linear because of squaring issues in the top's construction. I do all my quilting on my table-top domestic machine - a Viking Sapphire, to be precise. It's a dream for perfect tensioning. I used Aurifil 50 wt for most everything, except for some So Fine on the tan outer border.

I really should have taken off the last two borders, measured and trimmed them, and put them back on. They were wavy (because Kelly took to the "short-cut" method of just laying a strip of border fabric down as you sew and then cut it off at the end of your quilt), but not as much as the borders on her "Strolling the Block" had been. I thought I could work out most of the wave since I'd read about people doing that. I'd say that was about 1/2 successful. You can see, though, that some waves remain. Hopefully I can block more of that out after washing it tonight. But they'll show up again whenever the quilt is washed unless someone blocks it each time.

[Later Edit: Check it out! Blocking worked perfectly. At least for a little while that outer border is beautifully flat.]

Here are some block close-ups, just for fun. "Be Attitudes" is frequently done as a Block-of-the-Month. There are fun embroidery and button touches here and there.

This quilt finished up at 60 x 72 inches. I used a doubled Hobbs Tuscany silk batting that I'd prewashed very carefully. The puff factor is about the same as a single layer of Hobbs washable wool. It's got a softer drape, though. I really like it, although the expense of this batting will limit how often I can use it. I know just which quilt top will get it next, though!  

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Now it's your turn to toot your horn and let us help you celebrate a finish! Link up right here.  :)