Splicing border prints

 When Randy (Barrister's block) and I went to Maine in June, Wendy (the Constant Quilter) who is a most wonderful hostess directed us to her friend Cindy who has great quilt shop, Busy thimble, in Litchfield, Maine .  Cindy was having her annual 30% off sale and she has a fabulous range of fabrics!  Randy and I definitely spent more than a few pennies!

Lucky me I found an old French Laundry Fab that made a perfect match to a center of one of my UFOs.  And it was on sale!!!!  The print has two distinct bar prints running the length of the fabric.  Being the thrifty person I am I did not want to have to cut 4 full bars to make everything match so I ended up splicing the last border so's to conserve fabric (for what project I have no idea).

So here's an easy accurate way to splice a border pattern:
First I looked at each end of the cut fabric to see which end might have a better "match".   This one was pretty close.

I folded  and pressed the left piece of fabric, which was already cut to the correct width.

That  way I could lay it onto the  end piece and match up the pattern as perfectly as possible.

It helped that there were three printed lines that I could line-up.

Once I got the overlap as close as possible I used my ruler and wood marking tool to score a mark in the right hand piece of fabric.  You can just see the mark near the tip of the tool if you focus in on that point.  This marks the actual stitching line.

Then I opened the fold on the left fabric and matched the fold line to the marked line I made in the last picture  with lots of pins and I stitched along the fold line.

It's not entirely invisible but it's pretty close! 

Here's the end result.  The center was a hand full of 'leftovers'  but with that border it made a pretty nice lap quilt!  

I finished putting the binding on today.  

I'm feeling pretty good about my new UFO program.  

 I did a fair bit of sewing this week and I managed to refrain from starting anything new!  I occupied myself with a few borders which  so I have a couple more quilt tops to add to the "to be quilted pile" and ai have a "finished Finish"!

Two down and a couple more hundred to go!

Have a great week!

cheers, CW 

Working on my UFO's

Note:  If you are a SBAMQG member looking for the Block of the Every Other Month instructions use the tab in the upper left for that link.

Several years ago I tried  a self imposed system to reduce my number of UFO's.  I called it my 2 for 1 program.  I had to finish two projects for every one project I started.  It worked pretty well for awhile.  Of course being a mouse attracted to shinny things (well actually fabric)  I inevitably fell off the wagon and got distracted by this, that and the other...

I have decided to renew my 'vow' so-to-speak and reinstitute my 2 for 1 system but go even further.  I will work only on UFO's until further notice.  I know that seems like a tall order but I have so many  I don't think I will be bored for quite some time.  I just have to keep from getting distracted by all those bright shinny things.  And, oh ya, stop buying fabric.  That would help with the stash reduction
as well.

So here's my first effort toward that goal.  This top was not that old.  I think I started it about a year ago.  The order in which things get done is not so important, just that I keep pulling out old projects, not starting new ones.  I got it quilted and bound this past week.  One down,  and a couple hundred to go!

I rarely buy patterns but I liked this one a lot so I thought I would try following some directions for once.  It said  'fat quarter friendly'  so I used this ADORNit packet of fat quarters.  It turned out there were not enough fat quarters in the packet so I only made 5 of those large square in squares and then I had to monkey around with the layout to make it all fit so even when I tried to follow directions I can't seem to do it!  But that's OK,  I'm reasonably happy with the results and it will make a fine donation quilt. 

I liked this floral print but I did not think all of the fabrics in the packet worked equally well with each other.   I ended up not using a few.

I  quilted it very simply but I think the straight line quilting is an excellent compliment to the general geometry of the composition. 

As usual I backed the quilt with a nice yarn dyed flannel.  Warm and cozy! 

My longarm is definitely a huge help in my new UFO reduction program.  I already have the next top pinned in the frame.

I don't know how long this will last, but I'm optimistic!

Have a great week!

cheers, CW