Finish Report, a Flimsy Alert, and a 17 in 2017

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. We we enjoyed a traditional feast day at home with all the kids except Devon, and of course, I ate far too much. I still feel sluggish from that! I don't have much energy right now, but I'm Whooping it up, because I have three things to report this week. :)  

~*~*~  Finish Report!  "Thankfulness 3"

Here is the final of the three "Thankfulness" quilts! This one is ours. It was the first to be quilted, so that I could try out the longarm diagonal ruler work and feathers on it before moving to the ones that were gifted. It was the last to be finished, though. 

My first longarm feathers. I'm not unhappy.  :)
Diagonal SID, though. . . needs practice!

These were 47 x 56 inches as flimsies, 46 x 55.5 after quilting, and 44.75 x 53.5 after washing in cold and a low-heat dryer. Perfect lap size. That's with pre-washed fabrics and batting. I wonder how much more they would have shrunk with un-treated materials? I can't believe how soft the Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 washed up in these, though. It has a really super nice feel.

Karen's Thankfulness quilt was shared last week. It arrived in Florida on Tuesday, and I got a slew of exuberant texts. My daughter reports that she loves showing it off. 

Lisa and Jeff got their Thankfulness quilt on Sunday, and she was tickled to death to have a handmade quilt. They live across the street from us, and always do more than anyone else to clear snow and coordinate the resurfacing needs we have to attend to for our cul-de-sac. I said something about wishing I'd been able to finish it several weeks ago so that it wouldn't be "out-seasoned" so quickly, and she said, "Are you kidding me? This is mountain Colorado land! We will use it all year!" 

Our Thankfulness quilt got its binding and label two days ago, barely in time to be out for Thanksgiving Day use. I was tempted to put it on the table, but decided I didn't want it getting that dirty right away.  :)  

The diamond and sashing fabrics are the same in all of them, while the accent colors, borders, and backings are each different.

All of them have the faux-piped binding, and all of them have leafy labels. I really love how these turned out, first-time longarm ruler bobbles and all!

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Flimsy Alert: "It's a Silky Wool Flannel Kind of Autumn Day"

. . . because sometimes you just need a funky quilt name!

Yesterday evening when everyone was crashed for some quiet time, I did all the "race" seams for my jelly roll. This flannel collection, "Woollies Flannel" from Maywood, is so plush and nice, I want to buy several of the prints to make jammies from!

A really weird photo of a flannel top in gorgeous fall-jewel tones.

Boy, oh boy, do I love this flimsy with the spots of gold Silk Radiance! Night-time shots are tricky to get the colors right, and this full shot is really horrid for that. Contrast is all messed up and won't play nice in filters, colors are weird. . . you know how it goes.

Taken upstairs under an incandescent bulb, this next photo shows a better balance, although the colors are still a little richer in life.

With the flannel, I pressed the seams open instead of to one side. I sewed this up "race" style, but took the time to press the seam after Lap 1 and Lap 2. Laps 3, 4, and 5, I left the pressing until I was finished. I'm really glad I pressed those first two laps before sewing the next lap. It would have been a royal pain to have all the seams to press open at once without a decent space already lying down for the rest of the laps going at once. It also made it infinitely easier to line up the fabric to stitch laps 3 and 4.

It'll be January, probably, before this goes on the longarm. I have a customer quilt, a QOV gift for my father-in-law, and some Christmas quilts that have first pick on frame time.


~*~*~
17 in 2017 - "Mermaid Fantasy" 

On another vein, I've been able to check off a stage on one of my 17-in-2017 projects. 

Heather's "Mermaid Fantasy" now has its detail trapunto work finished on the five vignettes, and it's ready for its final quilting. That's a task for the 2018 list.  :)

That was a weird movie
(The Whole Nine Yards provided snipping entertainment)

I did this the same way I did my Sea Breeze mini quilts - I've put in all the detail quilting for each of the five vignettes. I didn't do the dissolving thread approach, as I like the way the detail quilting gives definition to the area, but doesn't get flattened too much when layered over the quilt's full batting and outline-quilted. For very large areas, like the central mermaid, there are some inner lines that will be followed through both layers of batting, but the details will stay quilted only in the trapunto layer.  I did all this at my domestic machine. There's no way I can do that level of detail at my longarm yet.

~*~*~

Linking up: 

TGIFF at Myra's this week

Sarah's Whoop, Whoop Linkup

Meridithe's 17 in 2017