Time to Start Over:

I have been distracted from knitting recently by my sewing machine. I've pulled it out and set it up, and as Grumperina remarked, it is quite a feat for those of us who live in apartments! Because of this, I've been neglected my knitting needles in favor of my quilt blocks.

I'm happy to say that it looks like the coast is clear for some more knitting! The fabric that came in was perfect, and I was able to finish my flying geese top.

My goal for this project was to be a nice scrap quilt -- not necessarily a perfect work of art. I was playing with colors and values as I combined a whole bunch of different 5" squares of fabric I would not necessarily have bought myself! I also don't have a 1/4" foot on my machine, so I end up eyeing the seam allowance most of the time. I'm usually really accurate and don't have problems, except this time my strips of geese ended up being off a tad. I stuck the ginger sashing in between and that solved the problem! I wanted the flock to be flying randomly, instead of in unison! (We'll think that, anyway, won't we?)

This picture shows most of the quilt -- only one strip of geese is missing from the right side, and then the sashing and border. I did manage to get a better picture of the whole thing, but as my photo set-up (the quilt on the bed, me standing next to it holding out my hand randomly to take pictures) left a lot to be desired it came out too blurry for me to post. You get the idea from this. The method of photography also gives the picture the warped look. I will attest to the fact that the sashing is all at right angles!

I absolutely love the fabric I used for the sashing -- the ginger and the yellow. Originally I was planning on using the ginger as the outer border and the yellow as the inner, but when I saw the nice contrast the ginger provided, I changed my mind.

Surprisingly, the hardest thing about this quilt was making sure it stayed small. I kept on having grand plans to increase the border, and then had to revise each of them when I realized I was coming close to exceeding the size of my batting (45" x 60"). I want to really quilt this one (by machine) and it needed to be a manageable size. Also, that's the size of the batting on my shelf! I succeeded, just barely, and also have enough backing for this. All the parts are purchased, and I'm excited about finishing!

And today after I finished the last seam, I finished off two other knitted projects, too!