Finish #6

 

It took me a while before this quilt became my main focus. DH retired the beginning of last year, and I didn't get his scrub top quilt finished until late March this year. Our anniversary is March 30, so I really wanted it finished by then, and once it was my main project, it came together pretty quickly. The pattern is called Chapel Glass. Of course it would look more like stained glass with different fabric choices (I'd like to make it again with a black background and batiks), but there were a lot of scrub tops with black in them, so I opted for a gray background instead. The size of the main unit worked well with the scale of most of the novelty prints. This pattern would be easier with non-directional fabrics, I really had to pay attention to which corner I was adding sew and flip corners to. I found it a bit funny that I was cutting apart scrub tops I had made him, then making him a quilt from the same fabric. Usually when I'm working with men's shirts, I didn't sew the shirt in the first place, but this time I did! 

I did get to give him the quilt for our anniversary. His anniversary gift to me will happen in April. He bought us tickets to see the Broadway version of Back to the Future the Musical. I love live theater, and when a good Broadway show comes to town I'm always game for it. It's been a while since we saw a Broadway show, so I'm thrilled we are going! It's hard to believe we've been married 42 years already! I'd still choose him, and I'm pretty sure he'd still choose me. 

My standard quilting goal is to get two quilts finished per month. With six quilts finished so far this year, I'm right at that goal. I've already started quilting the next quilt, and both that and another need to be finished in April, so hopefully all of that will get done, and I'll stay on track.

I have already started working through my batting scraps to make Frankenbatting. I'm starting with the poly batting, because I don't like piecing it. Cotton batting is much easier to piece. So far I've made three battings to match with three quilt tops. I've got SO many quilt tops right now, I'm just matching up similar sized batting scraps, sewing those together, and then checking to see if I have a quilt top about that size. I know I'll have more batting scraps after a basting spree, and I'll deal with that later. I'm mostly piecing batting for throw sized quilts. If it's twin or larger I prefer to use batting off the roll. Speaking of rolls of batting, I just finished off another roll of batting too, so the Frankenbatting sessions are well timed. I'm going to try cutting up the smallest batting scraps into very small pieces, and make some pillow forms from them. The cost of pillow forms is getting crazy, and I have a couple pillow patterns I'd like to make.

Oh, I went through the tote of fabric I was given, and the wideback fabric was put away, the yardage is on minibolts and put away, and the fat quarter-1 yard pieces are folded and put away. 

There were a few odd shaped pieces I decided to cut up and add to my scrap user system. Compared to how much I had to cut before, this isn't much, and I'm thinking no more than a week before it's all processed. I'd say just two or three days, but with Easter coming up we've got family stuff going on, so there may be days I don't cut at all. I'm only working on scraps in the evening, am most nights for an hour or so, but since it all needs to be pressed before it's cut, it takes a little longer. At any rate, the fabric tote I showed in the last post is empty, and now that those fabrics are integrated into my stash they will get used much faster.