ALYOF, Sort of

If you are unsure what ALYOF means, it stands for A Lovely Year of Finishes (a fun link up at Sew Bittersweet Designs where you set goals and see what everyone finishes up during the month). Let’s just says some are lovlier than others! I finished my quilt with the black and gray ten minute blocks which was my February goal for AYOLF. Finishing it feels good because I met my goal, but I am not thrilled with the finish. I didn’t like the blocks a whole lot from the get go. I set them on point, sashed them with black and used black for both the corner and setting triangles. Then I remembered that I hate quilting on black…. Ooops.

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I have been really working on improving my FMQ skills. Want to know how to highlight the fact that you are not yet highly skilled at FMQ? Quilt with lighter colored thread on black – that will do it. I used a varigated YLI thread which matched the colors of the quilt very nicely. YLI has some heft and it is nice to sew with. It looked ok on the print fabrics.  On the black, not so much. Oh well, live and learn!

The saving grace for this quilt, in my opinion, is the scrappy binding. I love a scrappy binding. I had actually gone to the LQS for fabric to bind it and couldn’t find anything so I decided to just bind it in black. Alas, I didn’t have enough black when I got home so I dug through all the scrap left from the project and made a lovely binding. To me a scrappy binding adds charm to a quilt.

IMG_0268Like I was saying, lessons learned….  if I were to be granted a “do-over” on this one, I would quilt it in charcoal gray (dark but a color I could see against the black). The stitching would look reasonable if it wasn’t so darn light. I am not at a skill level (yet) to highlight the stitching by using light colors on a dark fabric. Hard to post pics of your work when you aren’t really happy with it but this is the real deal.  It doesn’t all turn out perfect. I am definitely done with black for a while. Luckily, my daughter loves the colors and she doesn’t give a hoot about the quilting. I had planned to use it as a donation quilt but I think this one will stay with us.  🙂

My daughter was my quilt model yesterday. My favorite pictures were of her running down the hill from our pond, back to our house. Put a cape on a kid, no matter the age, and they will run.

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IMG_20150222_2943Hope everyone is having a good week. As usual, we are crossing fingers for a bit of rain at the end of this week. California has virtually NO snowpack which should make for a horrendous fire season this summer. I am hearing hints that there might be a tiny bit of snow coming our way this weekend. Please, please, please……

Linking to Sew Cute Tuesday, Freemotion by the River and Let’s Bee Social as well as AYOLF at Sew Bittersweet Designs.  Links for most of these are at the top of the page under link-ups.

 

10 thoughts on “ALYOF, Sort of

  1. Mari

    Well, if you had a quilty cape, you would run too! It turned out lovely. Congratulations on the finish. So now what lovely thing will you make for a donation? 🙂

    Reply
    1. Bernie Post author

      I am donating a few things that I had made for my Etsy shop. Easier than trying to put another quilt together by the end of the week!

      Reply
  2. Cassandra

    i think it’s very striking! Isn’t the finish a great feeling? My quilting is fairly terrible but once the quilt is out of the wash most of my misgivings are left behind.

    Reply
    1. Bernie Post author

      Thank you Cassandra! You are right, once it is washed and crinkled, the quilting looks much better!!

      So glad you stopped by. Have a great day.

      Bernie

      Reply
    1. Bernie Post author

      Hi Deb:
      Yes, it is a pretty quilt – no need to sweat the less than perfect quilting. Life is too short. Hope your week is going along well!

      Bernie

      Reply
  3. Sandy Panagos

    It’s not as bad as you feel it is. Sometimes we are a little disappointed, but at least it’s a finish! Besides, they always look better after they are washed. I love the pics of your daughter running with it.

    Reply
    1. Bernie Post author

      You’re so right. I am fine with it now. FMQ just takes a lot of practice and if it think about where I was a year ago, I have improved greatly. We are our own worst critics! I love those pictures of my daughter too. She was having so much fun. Thanks for your kind words!

      Bernie

      Reply

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