quilts at the ready

When I sat down to sew today I wanted to make little things, but felt like I had a couple of *ahem* larger projects staring at me from across the room. I finished a queen sized quilt top this time last year and sometime mid year purchased this bright floral fabric for the back. It has sat. So today I picked up the backing and started piecing some long seams. I have decided to have it quilted for me because I would like to use it on my bed this year, I am already hand quilting a queen sized quilt, and it makes me tired to contemplate quilting this on my machine. 

I need 3-6 inches of extra backing on all sides for the long arm folks according to their website, so this presented a bit of a puzzle for me with the 6 yards of fabric I had. I ended up adding a strip of another print down one side just to have plenty of extra wiggle room. I ironed the top again since it’s been folded for a while, and pressed seams open and ironed the entire pieced backing. Getting all of that fabric flat made me really appreciate my decision to have it quilted - so much fabric! I still have a bunch of batting on a roll, so I cut some of that too and all of the pieces are hung up and ready to go to the shop. They take walk ins, so I am hoping I can get it in this weekend or next and have it by February or March. 

The other project hanging around (literally, on my project wall) was this scrappy improv project. I’ve decided to make it into a wall hanging which made it possible to piece a couple of batting scraps together and pick a backing fabric today. I got it all quilted with just very simple vertical lines in the sashing and it is trimmed up. I haven’t bound it yet because I don’t know what I will use, maybe some scrappy strips? That black fabric was really fiddly linen so I think I would hate binding with that. I am also considering tying the middle of each square with some coordinating yarn. Stay tuned!