TGIFF You Must Finish

Hey there TGIFF fans! It's that time again, time for another Thank Goodness it's Finished Friday!

I've been sitting on a pile of quilt tops from my Summer Scrap Elimination programs; some of them have been sitting for quite some time, just sitting on my shelves taunting me with their lack of quilting and binding.

"You must finish!" Terry Pratchett once wrote in the copy of his book I had him sign for my sister, Allison. That phrase kept cycling around in my head while I packed up my Tucson studio in preparation for our recent move to Phoenix. I looked at each quilt top that was still unfinished and began to form a plan for getting more of them done. I made a vow that I would take the bigger ones to my favorite long arm quilter in Tucson, Kim Votava, at Purple Sand and I would practice with some new threads on the smaller ones with the goal of having more than half of them done before this Friday blog post.

To start with, I looked at some of my projects that looked like they could use a border. This quilt was from Week 4 of my Summer Scrap Elimination last year. I like the way the scrappy background came out and that as the pattern developed, I began to see bees in the project.

I added a border to this project so all of the piecing would be neatly framed. I decided to use a double border with this one to emphasize the dark fabrics and finish it with an orange outer border.

I love quilting that accents the nature of the quilt design and since I saw bees in the quilt pattern when I made it, I asked Kim to show me edge to edge designs that contained bees and butterflies. I love how the design worked out and it really shines in a beautiful variegated thread that compliments the warm pinks in this quilt.

I did the same with the Christmas Tree quilt, adding a magenta inner border to make the greens in the quilt more powerful and a wide green border that would make it the perfect size to cuddle up on the couch with my daughter this holiday season and had Kim quilt it with an edge to edge design that included a variety of ornaments. I love the variety of ornaments in the design she found for me!

This project was from Week 1 of the Summer Scrap Elimination 2022 and looking at it finished now is making me look forward to making it again in Blues and Whites.

For some of the smaller projects I had made as table toppers from the leftovers of larger scrap projects, I decided to try some of my new threads (including a few King Tuts from Superior Threads and a Tutti from Wonderfil).

I had fun playing with one of my favorite free motion designs I created, The Wiggle Daisy. Click on the link to watch a video on quilting your own Wiggle Daisies on your next project.

To bind these projects, I got into my leftover binding drawer, where I keep all the extra binding I make. Hot tip quilty friends: when you have to make binding, consider making a little extra or just cutting a few extra long strips to add to your binding collection and be ready to use it to finish your smaller projects or those unexpected things that come down the pipeline at the last minute. I put these bindings on as I got started unpacking the new studio and used them as my couch projects earlier this month.

I use a 2 1/2" bias cut binding for all of my quilts and I like to put mine on with 3/8th inch seam allowance to make my binding a very full binding. See how I prefer to turn a 90 degree corner as I put the binding on with the machine and finish the back side by hand.

As one of those fidgety people that doesn't like to just sit when I watch TV, having binding projects for my evenings keeps my hands busy and makes me feel like I can focus on a good story while I'm getting things done.

So my friends, what's been on your list to finish? Are you ready to join the party by sharing a link to one of your own recent finishes below. Then be sure to visit the other links of this week's participants. Please include a link or button to tgiffriday.blogspot.com in your post so your visitors can see everyone's finishes, too!