Three finishes and one Flashback Friday

Did I say my goals for the week were for ONE week? I'm sure I meant two weeks. :) (But I did accomplish some significant non-quilty goals, so it is what it is.)

And by "finishes" I mean I put labels on my three Christmas projects. Now they are completely finished! :)

First... the Christmas projects. I made this Buggy Barn Christmas tree skirt... turns out all the light colored stars ended up together, but there was just no way to arrange the pieces to make it look more evenly spaced without two of the same fabrics ending up side by side. I finally decided it would be covered with gifts, so I let it go.

I machine quilted the grid design on myself. My quilting gal was surely backed up due to the holidays, so I made myself be brave and used my walking foot. I would have stippled it, but I was scared. :) Anyway, it turned out fine. The grid looks pretty obvious in this picture, but I think some of that is the chalk lines I drew on. I am washing it tomorrow before packing it away until next Christmas, so that will hopefully take care of that.

The owner of my LQS was so kind to not only show me how to cut the binding on the bias for this project, she actually did it for me. I love CWQC!!! I didn't love sewing on that binding with all the points, but it got done. To be honest, this is one of those projects I mostly was just glad to finish and didn't really end up feeling in love. I'm glad we have it now, though. No more just arranging a random piece of fabric under the tree!

I had enough fabric left over from the tree skirt to make this wall hanging:

 I love how vibrant it turned out! And more scraps to piece the back:

AND... I had enough scraps to make this table runner:

I used the improv method I learned at a class I took at my LQS, taught by Emily Herrick. I don't think the method is quicker than traditional quilting (which is what I was thinking when I decided to use it for the table runner), but I like how it turned out. I think an improv bed quilt would turn out so fun...  

I used three different green fabrics to scrap up the binding.

I did free motion quilting on the table runner and the wall hanging. I am not really experienced with fmq, but they turned out just fine and I felt really good that I did it all myself! I also used the machine to do the binding. I like how quickly the binding can get done on the machine, and I'm getting somewhat better on making it look decent, even on the back. (Not perfect, just better!)

I labeled all three quilts today, and used the handwritten method instead of embroidery. I figure they won't be washed often, so it should be okay. When I wash the Christmas tree skirt, I'll find out if Sharpie Fabric Stain markers really don't run. (Eeek! Fingers crossed!)

Pretty basic labels... like this:

And my last goal, if I remember right, was to start cutting out the squares for my March wallhanging... I started that today.   *sheepish look*

And for my Flashback Friday...

This is the first quilt I can remember making. I had admired my friend, M, for years for all her cute quilty stuff. Finally I jumped in and she helped me make this simple wall hanging for my girls' new bedroom:

Bless her heart, she was so patient with me. She helped me get through most of it, then another quilty friend, L, helped me finish it up. All those buttons in the corners were to help cover my mismatched seams, as well as "tie" the quilt. I had no idea you could send quilts "out" to be quilted and I wasn't really ready to try hand quilting the whole thing. I've come a long way. Ha!

I was trying to remember what year I would have made this and the best I could come up with with "ca: 2000." I think I started it when we were still in our old house and finished after moving.

So this is hanging in our guest room now, since my girls outgrew their bedroom decor long ago. I honestly don't love it and am ready to take it down and replace it with something much nicer... but what do I do with it? Should I label it and tuck it away? Give it to the local thrift store? If I do that, will it just end up in a rag bin? I'm stumped, so if anyone ever reads this post, give me your opinion. What do you do with stuff like this?

Goals for this week:

1) Label and post my Valentine wall hanging and table runner that I made a while ago.

2) Finish cutting out the squares for the March/St. Patrick's Day projects.

3) Post another "Flashback Friday" about another of my earliest quilt projects. :)