Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? A BIG Finish!!!

Hi, all!

Wow!  It's already Friday!  And since our whoop whoop party was pre-empted last week, I bet I'm not the only one with a lot to whoop about this week!  So let's get started...

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Maybe you remember this picture - taken the day I finished my Long Time Gone quilt top.  Notice the date on the top?  That's right - July 10, 2017.  That. is. pitiful.  I had every intention of hand quilting this top, and it's been sandwiched for more than a year.  I did a little bit of hand quilting, but nowhere near as much as I should have.  I finally realized that if I continued hand quilting it, this quilt would never make it to the binding stage.

So I bit the dust, pulled out the bits of hand quilting I had done, and took the top and back off the batting.  I had a wool batting on hand that I had bought for a quilt for my niece, only to find out that "washable" doesn't really mean easy care/appropriate for a college student.  But that wool batting was perfect for this quilt! I wanted something with a lot of loft that would show off the quilting I wanted to do, plus be warm, light and drape-able.

Lots and lots of quilting went into this baby - it was on the frame for three days!  I had a hard time getting good pics up in my studio, but one day when I turned off the lights to quit for the day, I noticed that the light from the back window made the quilting stand out nicely, and took this picture.  

I didn't think I'd ever get through with it, but finally I reached the bottom of the quilt.  I used both free-motion quilting and ruler-work on this quilt, and don't think I wasn't nervous about it!  But I decided that since it was for me, I was going to do what I wanted and look on it as a learning experience, embracing the mistakes and imperfections.

Because wool batting can't be dried in the dryer, I hung this quilt on the clothesline to catch some sun and breeze.  Once the sun set, I pulled it off and laid it on the guest bed to finish drying.  It was a good place to lay it out flat, and with the ceiling fan, it dried pretty quickly.

And another advantage?  When I came in to check on it in the morning, the light coming in the bedroom window was perfect for showing off the quilting!

Every block was quilted differently!  As I said, I did a lot of ruler work, and also a good bit of tiny stippling or matchstick quilting to make some parts "pop out".

There was some pretty straight line quilting too - I really love the way the background fabric turned out on the block in the lower left corner of this picture!  Those tiny diamond crosshatches really set off the Trip Around The World block, which was mostly ditch-stitched.

Here you can see some of the matchstick quilting I used to make parts of blocks stand out.  Man, that stuff is tiny!  

It was so much fun deciding how to quilt each block!  I really stretched myself, and had a pile of quilting books stacked on my worktable to refer to each time I moved on to another space to quilt.

The back really tells the tale of how much quilting is in this quilt - you can just see all the texture it created!

And isn't this fun?  Jen Kingwell herself signed my quilt at a trunk show and lecture she gave in 2017!  

So here's the skinny about this quilt:

Pattern is Long Time Gone, designed by Jen Kingwell.

Fabrics are scraps of various Kate Spain designs, Good Neighbors by Amanda Jean Nyburg, a line from Connecting Threads called (I think) Nana's Kitchen, maybe? and various other assorted bright scraps.  The sashing between the blocks is the very last of my grandmother's vintage Irish linen that she ordered directly from Ireland during the 60's and 70's to make her suits.

Batting is Hobbs Tuscany Collection Washable Wool Batting.

Quilting is completely hand-guided free motion and ruler work.

And yes, I'm keeping this one!

Oh, and one more thing to whoop about - we currently have 242 people signed up for Hands2Help 2019!  It's not too late to join in the fun if you haven't signed up already - click here and scroll down to the signup area!

So - - - can I get a whoop whoop???

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And now it's your turn!  

What's making you whoop it up this week?

See what you find when you google "funky chicken"?

What's making you do a little happy dance?

Share!  We want to dance right along with you,

And it's always more fun to dance with friends!

The party will stay open until Sunday midnight.

Hope to see you there!

Hugs!

Sarah