That UFO is *gone*! - "Lori's Irish Butterflies" flies away. . .

It's finished! It's finished!!

(Actually, it's been finished for a week, but I never could remember to take pictures in the morning - there's really only a one-hour window right now for light that gets the colors right.)

For the quilting, I did stitch-in-ditch on all the chains, using some pretty dark violet Madeira rayon thread I had on hand. I did FMQ in the butterfly fields - used a nice sky blue, chose 1 or 2 or 3 butterflies to highlight, and meandered in the rest. I didn't want the quilting to get too heavy because we wanted minky on the back and I wanted to keep the drape super soft. And since we had minky with all its forgiving fluff, I used a bobbin color of the same thread to match the back instead of the color being quilted on the front. There are only a couple of tiny turn points of the violet that peek through, so I'm happy.

Love the way the back looks.  :D   Becca was very choosy with the minky color samples I had. She wanted one that would highlight the butterfly colors. She did a great job.

I discovered the joys of "Paint" recently and patched together a fun butterfly label.

It's all ready and waiting for her to snuggle under for our next weekly Movie Night!

Not much says "Love ya, Mom" more than. . .

. . . an 18 year old young man who's willing to step outside traditional male behavior to learn how to sew a quilt for his mom!

Kyle stopped by to follow up on Becca's work from yesterday on Lori's Irish Butterflies.

Pretty adept already at wielding the rotary. . .



Gotta get that little snag!

. . . he took to the whole careful 1/4" seam allowance concept like a fish to water. Got the rest of the strips cut out and sewn in duos for the criss-cross blocks as well as the last trio for the butterfly block sides. I was impressed!

Way to go, Kyle!

Lori's Irish Butterflies

Today's sewing was fun!

Becca came over to work on her mom's quilt. We'd started it before Christmas, with Becca and Kyle doing almost all the work under my mentorship, but ambitious high school teens in band have rare moments available at that time of year.

They'd chosen some fun gold-highlighted butterfly fabric for her, paired with some pretty purples because they said Lori loves purple. We found some metallic Gold-on-Gold blender fabric that looked AWESOME as a contrast for the border play. But we quickly tossed that because it created a strong LSU effect - AND WE COULDN'T HAVE THAT! Not for a die-hard GATOR fan! We decided to wait until the center is finished and audition some other colors for the accent border. We do know what we'll use for the outer border - it matches the lighter purple, but has really cool metallic gold swooshes all over it without looking like it belongs in Tiger Country. 

I happen to know that Lori also loves the entire concept of Ireland, so I suggested they work up a double Irish Chain quilt - not too hard for beginners. Just two types of blocks, no bias or HSTs or anything really frustrating.

Anyway, after a long hiatus, out came the box with Lori's pieces. . .

 

Now, where were we?

(Do you want to know how badly I had hovered like a hawk while they were using the rotary cutter after I tried so hard to cut my finger off the month before?!!)

 . . .and Becca got right to work. She finished several butterfly blocks and then switched to making a criss-cross block so she could finish the whole first row. Which she did quite well!