Welcome to finish it up Friday and Happy December!
I made serious progress on my gingham quilt this week! I debated rushing through the hand binding just so I could have a finish for today, but then the voice of good reason showed up. (Hurray for that! hahaha!) I decided to slow down and enjoy the process instead. I'm currently 1/4 of the way done stitching the binding to the back. I look forward to snuggling up with it as I finish it this weekend. I love hand binding!
(As an aside....I dream of having a stack of 20 quilts sitting in a pile, just waiting to be hand bound, especially as we head into winter. I don't think that will ever happen, as I can't wait to finish quilts! But, doesn't it sound like a nice winter activity to sit down after dinner and have some binding to do every night?? I don't think that would ever get old!)
Anyway.....I do have a small finished project to share with you today!
A few years ago my neighbor friend passed along some scraps that her sister-in-law had leftover from making felted wool mittens. Not one to turn down scraps, I adopted them and they sat in my sewing room for quite awhile. I cut circles (freehand, with scissors) out of the wool scraps and they sat in a basket for awhile longer.
Recently, I separated the cool colors from the warm colors and sewed some of them into a garland. It was so quick and easy...once the circles were cut, that is! I used a 50 weight thread from Connecting Threads (because it's nice and thick) and I stitched them together on my sewing machine. I sewed about 6 "blank" stitches between each wool disk. I made a few garlands...one is about 4 yards and one is 4 1/2 yards long. I discovered that might have been a little bit too long, but I guess I can always trim them, right?
I hung one on my mantle and I'm sure I'll find a home for the other one soon. This was such a fun and quick project!
These are ready to stitch up and would be perfect for either Christmas or Valentine's Day. Or both!
That's it for me today! Do you have a finish to share? If so, please link up. Thank you, as always, for joining me for finish it up Friday! Thanks for stopping by and for reading. I appreciate it so much! Have a great weekend!
23 comments:
Love the garland! What a great project.
The quilt looks amazing... and the garland is so cool!
I love your garland, and am so impressed by the quilting you do on your home machine.
3 cheers for slowing down and enjoying the hand stitching!!
ENJOY!
I made a cute Christmas garland with felt holly leaves and berries. 1 leaf, 1 or 2 berries, repeat. The hardest part was trimming all the leaves!
I would love a WINTER full of hand binding! It is is my favorite part of the quilting making. Too bad I'd have to quilt so many quilts to get a winter's full of it.
Love the garland!
I really enjoy working with batiks but the hand-binding on the dense fabric really slows me down. But otherwise, I'm like you - I enjoy hand-binding. Makes me feel less guilty about watching tv!
Great garland
I complete agree about binding! It's such a lovely evening sew! I made a similar garland a couple of years ago and it goes on our tree every year and still looks good - well mine wasn't quite so tasteful (it has all the colours) but it goes well with the decoration the kids have made! ;)
I've often longed for a stack of binding to do!! It is such a peaceful and calm activity, perfect for a cold winter's night! And I also love your garlands! I made some a few years back with 5-8 circles each, and hung them from the ceiling beams in our kitchen (timberframed house means many wooden beams), simply hanging down from the ceiling. I sewed paper snowflakes at the ends of a few of them, and it created such a magical vibe!! (Just another idea for the next time you find yourself with wool scraps!)
It is right and good to savor the stitches and the scraps. Happy, happy, joy, joy!
Enjoy finishing the binding on your quilt.
Hi Amanda,
Oh how I love the colors on your gingham quilt! So pretty - it is a pattern I have often wanted to make but have yet to do so. I love hand binding as well - oh, to have a quilt to work on every night would be fabulous. ~smile~ Roseanne
Oh those red wool circles would make a pretty non-rotting cranberry garland for the tree, wouldn't they?
Last night I sat un-quilting a small baby quilt. Not quite as fun as binding but I gotta admit, not nearly as bad as I was anticipating it would be. I got just past 1/2 way and decided to save the rest for tonight.
Have a great weekend!
What a great idea, the felted garland. It would be a fun project to do with the older grands.
I would be HAPPY to send you all of my quilts to be hand bound :~)
What a brilliant garland idea! And I love your quilting motif. Great job!
I'm still in love with how you quilted the loops in a mirror image. Such a pretty bowl of wool scraps!
I absolutely love the garland! It's such a fun and creative use of scraps.
I love hand binding in the evening and it also keeps me warm! Paula in KY
That is the perfect garland! Yeah for hand-me-downs and someone else's leftovers!
That red garland would be perfect to hang I. February! And I have an idea...your readers could send you quilts that need the binding stitched down. I bet you’d have 20 offers within a minute of posting it;) I only bind by machine. It might have something to do with (looking otherwise completely normal) having short sausage-like fingers!
A big pile of quilts to stitch binding on sounds good to me. Binding is my favorite part! The garland idea is very interesting! I would never have thought of that. I think it's pretty cool.
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