OH October!

There are 31 days in October but somehow it felt like only 31 hours because this month really flew by  fast especially after spending almost half of the month at the Grandparent house and way too much time at the home improvement stores.  Surprisingly I do have three Finally Finish quilts for October and thought I better post them before this month is over.

Disclaimer: The Master Quilt Holder was unable to provide his stellar quilt holding skills for these photos since he was unavailable due to the stomach flu gift he received from his granddaughter upon our most recent arrival.  I had to rely on this wooden bench my dear DIL found on the side of the road and put on our porch.  Nice substitute don't you think?

I did another pair of Finally Finishes like the ones I did in August which this time these two quilts were somewhat connected since they both were made from RJR fabric lines.  Daisy Days (right) is from a 2002 Thimbleberries collection which is when I purchased the fabrics.  As I have done with a lot of beloved fabrics, this pretty collection sat on my shelf for twelve years until I finally made a simple quilt with 4"x8" finished rectangles in 2014.  Pop Tarts (left) is made from the remaining scraps I had left of my Pie Making Days fabrics, also very pretty.  This is one of the tops I made while recuperating from last year's fractured knee accident, which may explain for some of the wonky piecing, and also one of the three 2018 UFOs waiting to be quilted.  I first purchased a charm square pack of the Pie Making Day in 2015 from a quilt shop near Yosemite and was drawn to this collection because the colors reminded me so much of the Daisy Days fabrics.  I just love the teals, cranberries, greens and yellow/gold in both of these collections.  I decided if and when I quilted Pop Tarts, I would also have to quilt Daisy Days since it wouldn't be right to finish one without the other.

Daisy Days was the first to be quilted with simple grid and wavy line quilting in a teal thread from Connecting Threads.  The backing and binding were prints from the fabric collection and yay for me for storing these fabrics safely in the backing vault and binding drawer.  This quilt measures 64"x72" and I am ready to snuggle with it; the Thimbleberries fabric is so nice and soft.

The quilting of Pop Tarts, with silver thread from Connecting Threads, started with just quilting straight vertical lines three inches apart which would have been fine, I thought, but my 1 a.m. brain said otherwise which I then at that time decided to do some research on some online quilting boards.  It would have been had I had used fleece which I was going to, but no, I used batting.  One comment I read that it would be okay but not recommended. Another comment which really stood out was that quilting should be enough for the quilt to withstand 250 washings which I may have to put on my labels that my quilts may not do this.  So after reading these comments I decided to do some horizontal grid lines eight inches apart which would have been sufficient but no 2 a.m. brain said let's add some more horizontal quilting four inches apart for true rectangular grid quilting.  Thankfully, June Bug, my Juki 2010 was all in on this late night quilting and quilted spectacularly with nary a pinch or a pucker where vertical and horizontal lines intersected even when quilted in different stages. I had enough of the teal fabric left from the Pie Making Day stash for the binding and the backing is a gray and white stripe Waverly print which I bought a bolt of since it makes for great backing. Pop Tart measures 56"x72" almost the same size as Daisy Days.

In case you're wondering, these two quilts were made from the charm pack, jelly-roll, fat eighth bundle and some yardage of the Pie Making Day fabrics which I can say I have very little left which is surprising since sometimes fabric never seem to get used up.  These two quilts will be used for the granddaughter's bedroom at our house but after both of us getting ill from her at our last visit, I'm having second thoughts, just kidding--payback is in the future and she might be taking care of us so she does need a bedroom at our house, right?

My third Finally Finish for October was this baby quilt which I've named Baby Emilio since it's somewhat related to the Baby Arturo quilt since it's for his future cousin, gender unknown, to be born in November and the future Mom's name is Emily.  Yep, my peep Mary is having grandkids born five months apart this year.  This quilt was made from Waverly Fat Quarters which I had in my stash and were just the right colors.  The backing was the same stripe print used in the Pop Tart Quilt, and that bolt of fabric sure comes in handy. Since the soon-to-be Dad is 6'7", I made this quilt longer that I normally do for baby quilts and measures 40"x56", long enough for at least a month or too I hope.  Baby Emilio quilt was quickly made and finished in between house visits way before the Baby Shower because I am getting my dates mixed up. I thought I was going to miss the last one of Mary's epic Baby Showers since Emily is the last of her children having their first baby but happily I was able to attend to be there.  

Usually, I take photos of my quilts on the day I write my posts just to add a little pressure but am so glad I didn't wait until today.  Just look at the snow covering my normal photo spot and imagine the whining that would have gone into this post about having to take photos indoors.  This snow is unheard of for Halloween and I don't remember it ever snowing on this day although they said it happened four times during my lifetime.  Today's snow has filled up my snow-quota for the year and I  better put out the Winter bed quilts now.  As one of my friends posted on her FB page, Merry Halloween!