Friday, January 11, 2013

The Big Week That Wasn't!

It's been forever since I've had cause to say TGIF! So I'll say it again, Thank God it's Friday! Schools here are closed due to icy roads and an impending snowstorm so the rest of my family is happy too. Our son had a better day yesterday and was up and about, still not much of an appetite and moderate abdominal pain but looks like himself again which makes Mom feel much better.

My UFO Finish for week #2 is Minnesota Ladyslipper. 18 down, 76 to go on my UFO Countdown! This is another oldie started in 2002 when I found the ladyslipper print at an area quilt shop. It was part of Northcott's State Flower collection if any of you remember it. The pattern is "Road to Ireland" from the book "Fat Quarter Quilts" by M'Liss Rae Hawley.  It is also my January finish for A Lovely Year of Finishes!

Thanks to everyone who offered input on the binding in this post. I really like the frame effect the dark green creates.
























My beginning quilting teacher's best advice was to pick a border fabric you love and work from there. As a newbie, I took that advice VERY literally in this case. And, I did technically use what I learned about value but very sparingly. A jolt of dark in the frame/binding and light white but heavy on the medium mush in the rest of the blocks. 3 Moda marbles and 3 bland prints do not create an exciting block! It's a pretty quilt but not a very eye catching one, to me anyway.
I had quilted it (which is kind of shocking in and of itself!) and then left it rolled up in my closet for 10+ years waiting for binding. How silly is that? It was quilted with mono thread which was my safe place and I love the pattern I used in the body of the quilt. Once I give it a wash it will crinkle up nicely.

I'm trying larger pictures today... please let me know what you think of them!  I spent some of my waiting/worrying time earlier in the week changing my blog layout a bit. I've been collecting tips & tricks about jazzing up my layout and creating a new header but haven't had time to work it all out so I thought this would be nice in the interim.  

I like the new colors and think the new font is much cleaner to read than my old one, but I'd love feedback on that too~. I'm linking up to Link A Finish FridayFinish it up FridayCan I Get a Whoop Whoop and TGIFF.

January Finishes

13 comments:

  1. Your font is really easy to read, and I like the bigger pictures. :) This is a really sweet UFO finish!

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  2. The dark green realy pops the colors in the quilt. Nice job.

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  3. I don't know that I can agree with you about eye-catching, since it was the first one that caught my eye when I looked at Richard's linky! I love the quilt, and I don't even like pink.

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  4. I like bigger pictures. Very pretty quilt, I don't see 'medium mush' I like the colors.

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  5. Love it! Good for you for quilting it- and I agree, the dark green is a really good border color choice for the quilt. (You can never go wrong with big pictures) :)

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  6. Very very pretty! Well done. I like the dark border/binding too!

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  7. I love this quilt. It is always wonderful to get one of those quilts that have sat way too long finally finished. When I started quilting a year ago I never could understand how you could do that. now I have a pile of quilts that range from a few blocks sewn together to completed tops and even quilted tops waiting binding. Hum maybe I should go finish one of those today my self. Thanks for linking up.

    Richard and Tanya Quilts
    Track My Shows

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  8. I love the bigger pictures - so much easier to see the pretty details in your quilts! And isn't it wonderful to finish off an old UFO? Yours is just gorgeous! Whoop whoop!!

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  9. I think it's a very pretty quilt.

    On my iPad, the links in light blue (bottom of post) were hard to read against that pretty background.

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  10. I really like the colors you used in this quilt! It looks great!

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  11. I love how you quilted it, and it is a very pretty finish...congratulations!

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  12. Some blogs get so jazzed up that it takes forever for the site to come up. I like having the large pictures, and letting all the frou-frou stuff go by the wayside. Your quilt came out great and the binding is perfect.

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  13. I Love that quilt! The colors, pattern, fabrics...they work together beautifully! Now I gotta try it.

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