It's list time again! Finish- A-Long Quarter 2!

I hope you had a successful first quarter and that you are looking forward to finishing more projects in this second quarter of 2016. 

As you are already aware, the 2016 FAL has gone global - a community of bloggers across the world, jointly hosting the FAL. Our hosts are:

• Debbie - A Quilter's Table - USA

• Jess - Elven Garden Quilts - Australia

• Stacey - SLO Studio - Canada

• Jennie - Clover & Violet - USA

• Helen - Archie the Wonder Dog - UK

• Nicky - Mrs. Sew and Sow -UK that's me!

• Cindy - Fluffy Sheep Quilting - Ireland

• Rhonda - Rhonda's Ramblings - USA 

• Leanne - She Can Quilt - Canada

For those of you who are new to the FAL, it is a place to find motivation and encouragement to complete those unfinished projects that are hanging about becoming UFOs. Every quarter you post a list of projects you hope to finish in the next three months, and then at the end of the quarter, you post a link from your blog, Flickr or Instagram of each successful finish from your original list.

Each finish is an entry for wonderful prizes from our sponsors. There is no penalty for not finishing a listed project, so feel free to make your list long or short, as you wish.

The 2016 Schedule and Rules for the FAL are on my permanent FAL page here, let me know if you have any questions.

Here are the fantastic and generous sponsors for Q2 of the FAL - you can see each of their prizes listed under their logo (think about visiting them and saying thank you):

The Quilt Ranch, $25 gift certificate	Knotted Thread, $30 gift certificate	Simply Solids, £40 (40 Pound) gift certificate	Sew me a Song, $20 gift certificate
Imagine Gnats, $40 gift certificate	Laurel Bee Designs, 2 pin bowls for 1 winner	Fat Quarter Shop, $50 gift certificate	On the Windy Side, pattern pack
Sew Sisters Quilt Shop, $25 gift certificate	Sunny Day Supply - $30 gift certificate	Sew Sweetness, copy of Windy City Bags	Christa Quilts signed copy of Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting
Mariners Compass Quilt Shop, $50 gift certificate	Porch Swing Quilts, 2 winners, 3 patterns each	7 Acres Cleared Fabric Shop, $50 gift certificate	Make Modern Magazine - 6 month subscription
Fluffy Sheep Quilting - â�¬25 (25 Euro) gift certificate	Mad About Patchwork - $40 gift certificate	Clover & Violet LLC - choice of 3 patterns	Oakshott Fabrics - £75 (75 Pounds) gift certificate
Happy Quilting - choice of 3 patterns	The Tartankiwi - choice of 3 patterns	Green Fairy Quilts - $25 gift certificate	Blossom Heart Quilts, Full Aurora BOM Pattern
The Intrepid Thread - $50 gift certificate

InLinkz.com

As you may recall from Q1, there was a return of tutorial week at the end of each quarter, between the opening of the link for finishes and the day that link closes. Did you enjoy this? 

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below! This will take place each quarter. Each host works hard to put these together so I hope you are visiting their blog to encourage them. If you have a tutorial that you would like to share, please let me or another host know.

 It's time to round up those projects you want to finish over the next three months, take a photo of where you are now, and make your list. 

Please ensure that you have at least started your projects - pulled fabric with a pattern or plan, and remember that it is finished projects that will get you entry toward the above listed prizes. So while we love to see your bee blocks, the "finish" is when they are a completed, usable project. 

It is very helpful if you tag your Q2 list as #FALQ2yourname.

 The 2016 Q2 link for your list of proposed finishes is now open below on my blog and on each of the hosting blogs. You only link your list once, on one blog - and that link will show up on all of the blogs.

If you are using Flickr or Instgram, link a mosaic and put your list in the description. Katy of The Littlest Thistle has a great tutorial on how to link-up if you have need it.

 We also ask that you become part of the FAL community. Please check out the links of others and visit and comment on their lists. We all need encouragement to get those finishes done, so please share some of your own too. When creating your list there is one thing to remember....No deductions for not completing something so ..... Aim High! Nothing to lose!!!

Well Now..... Get those lists together and get linked up. The Q2 linky party will stay open until 11 pm EST, April 16th - as we are global, you might want to check your time zone to determine your last possible time to link. Remember: you only need to link up on ONE hosting blog and it will automatically show up on all hosting blogs.

I'm working on mine .....looks like another long one!  

An InLinkz Link-up

Scraptastic Tuesday - A Fantastic Finish

On Tuesday I quilted the background for my triffid quilt.

I was only partly serious when I started making this quilt from scraps.....

But the response was to keep going from some equally mad people among you.

So I made a scrappy background 

And I finished quilting it....

There was still time to be sensible and just bind this quilted background... But a few people encouraged me to keep on with this crazy project and appliqué on the triffid.

I started with the stem and leaves and finished off the raw edges with a bit of contrast binding.

I just had a big flower head to make and the binding for another finish! 

Last night I fiddled with my plans for the flower head and changed it quite a bit to make it easier for me to stitch on and maybe not so scary!   

And I now it is all bound and finished. 

This is my 12th project from my Finish-a-long list quarter one.  I'm glad to have this one done as it is another heading to my favourite charity Siblings Together.  Hoorah!

For more news about the 100 Quilts for Siblings Together campaign go here!

Linking this finished quilt for Siblings Together to the Link Up as part of the tally towards our 100 quilt target.

I am linking this quilt to the Finish-A-Long 2016 Quarter One

This quilt is on my FAL2016 list here

Finish-A-Long Quarter 1 - how did I do? The overview

I am surprisingly thrilled by the chance to score something through, stamp it as finished so I keep my original FAL list and also update a copy like this!  

Mosaic 1 For Me!

 Top row : 1. Welsh blanket version 2; 2. Nordik

Bottom row : 3.  Alhambra quilt; 4. Double Wedding Ring; 5. Stingy Bee Row quilt; 6. Vintage Circles Quilt

Particularly pleased to get so many of these done as they are my more complicated quilts and all but one are King size.  They have therefore been hanging around on my lists for a while!   So goodbye Nordik and Vintage Circles - old list buddies dating back to 2015 and 2009 respectively!  

Mosaic 2 For Siblings Together

Column 1: 7. Nine patch;  8.  Irish chain; 9. Kaleidoscope2 

Column 2: 10. Triffid

Column 3: 11. Scrappy flowers; 12. hexy stars; 13. QAYG tiles

These finishes also give me great joy because they are in such a great cause!   Most have been hanging around in some form since last year too but I only have one left!  

Mosaic 3

Row 1: 14. Butterfly quilt ; 15. Oakshott candy ; 16. KLT bag

Row 2: 17. Clothes ; 18. Bring me Flowers

Row 3:  19. Mini Hawaii;  20. KLT scrappy and low volume quilt; 21. Square in a square

Well I even managed to get two of these finished ...I didn't really expect that!  The rest are rolling over to Quarter 2!

#nordikquilt - quilting the background and finishing the quilt

This quilt started as an idea of a Winter Quilt and a celebration of all things Scandinavian.

I made a few blocks

And a comprehensive Pinterest board and then asked my amazing bee mates in the Bee a Brit Stingy bee to make blocks for me!

I certainly threw them a bit, as up till now we had been setting blocks and colour schemes as you do!

Catherine's, Di's, Lucy's and Charlotte's blocks

Collette's blocks

Janet's, Helen's, Karen's and Sheila's blocks

Emily's blocks

This was something new and I'm delighted with what they came up with - way beyond my wildest dreams.

So then I had all these brilliant blocks and no real idea of how to put them together but I made a start 

and then had to change it quite a bit

And add more blocks..... but finally I had a quilt top

My next challenge was how do I quilt it?

It became clear that there should be hand quilting - so I used cotton perle to outline the blocks!  All 108 of them! 

But then there was all those empty spaces - and a need to quilt every 4" as the wool wadding required.  I thought snowflakes but had no real idea beyond that!

I'm glad to say that I do now!

I am quilting all sorts of motifs that are already in the quilt as I think if in doubt repeat - so there are Dala horses, stars, snowflakes, birds and there will be so much more.

I might just finish in time for Winter 2016!

Update:  I have totally finished this quilt now - labelled and bound with a delicious red/white diagonally striped binding and here is the proof!

Want a closer view?  

And one last look at the whole thing

I am linking this quilt to the Finish-A-Long 2016 quarter one

This quilt is on my FAL2016 list here

Finish-A-Long 2016 Tutorial Week - Quilt As You Go

Hello and welcome!  Today I am sharing a technique for Quilt As You Go with you.  I hope you will find it useful when you are making your quilts.  

There are several reasons why you might want to use a Quilt As You Go technique

• You have a big quilt and a domestic machine to quilt it on - this quilt was quilted in three sections and then put together to make a king size quilt

• You want to practice Free Motion Quilting - I did that on the above quilt too

• You want a perfectly aligned double-sided quilt - ok that may just be me!

I have found that there are several ways to Quilt As You Go and I'm showing you one of them that will suit all of these.

This is how I put together the above quilt from a pattern by my friend Mary Emmens, who has been designing quilts based on traditional welsh woollen blankets. 

A feature of these blankets it that they are double sided and each side is quite different as the dominant colours are reversed.  

So I thought it would be a great idea to do that with this quilt, hence the need for a Quilt As You Go method without the use of sashing.

You could equally use this method of Quilt As You Go and use a square of backing fabric instead of a block, but choose a backing fabric with a small random pattern that doesn't need pattern matching.



Step one Make your blocks.  Layer and quilt them leaving a wide margin around the edge unquilted.  The design of these blocks made that easy as there is a strip of background fabric on the outside edge, plus cornerstones.  

If your block doesn't have this reference point just mark where you are stopping the quilting, a generous 1.5" - 2.5"  from the edge.

When all blocks are quilted in the middle they should be trimmed through all layers to your unfinished block size.

At the edge all layers can still be separated.

Step two Join the backing fabric with a normal 1/4" seam - the orange seam in this photo.  The wadding and backing fabric are folded back out of the way.

Step three  There is an overlap of wadding in the photo below.  

To prevent a double thickness forming a ridge in your finished quilt this needs to be trimmed away, so that the wadding from one block butts nicely against the other without wrinkling up.  Take some time to do this and be sure not to cut your backing fabric. 

I cut all the excess from one block so that my wadding join is not directly over the fabric seams. 

Step four Join the wadding.  I prefer to do this by hand with a ladder stitch (link to tutorial on ladder stitch) - my needle shows how to create this stitch which forms a rung like a ladder from one piece of wadding to the other and draws them together.   You might have seen this stitch if you have had an operation ...similar purpose!   

It only takes a few minutes to do this and doesn't have to be pretty as we are covering this up.    

Alternately a piece of fine weight iron on interfacing would work too though I haven't tried it!  You just want to hold the wadding in place so that it doesn't fold back on itself, wrinkle up and to keep things robust. 

Step five Join the top fabric.

Overlap the quilt top fabric.  Fold under the 1/4" seam allowance of one block and stitch to the seam allowance lying flat underneath.  I do this by hand using an invisible blind hem stitch or slip stitch.  (Tutorial on this stitch at the end of this post)

Alternatively you can just top stitch this seam by machine, in which case you will need to stop and start away from the edge or unpick a few stitches when you are ready to join the next section.

At this point you may decide to add further quilting over the join, for decorative purposes, for added strength to the join or because your wadding requires more quilting for stability.  

Step six Join all blocks together in a similar fashion.  For this quilt I joined them into sections to minimise the long seams.    Here it is in three sections...

...leaving one long seam to join. 

Finally you have a quilt that just requires binding.  

Two sides of the same quilt, well aligned thanks to Quilt As You Go!

I used this method of Quilt As You Go because I wanted to align my blocks on this double sided quilt but it would be equally valid for joining sections of a large quilt as in my first example at the top of this post. In that quilt I just joined three sections the whole width of the quilt,  instead of lots of blocks.  

It also works for practicing FMQ, either in blocks or longer sections that fit well under your machine.

It doesn't work for blocks or sections that are quilted right up to the edge as in the charity quilt below.  This was joined in the more usual way with a contrast sashing.  

Hope you find this technique useful in your future quilting projects.  Perhaps it will help you finish a large project on your Finish-A-Long list for Quarter 2 that you have been putting off because it is so big.  

Our next tutorial is by Jennie @Clover & Violet - she has a tutorial for making a cell phone/ID holder - will you be joining me, reading it tomorrow?