Basting Party

Basting for party of one, please. I've been working on assembling the quilts you saw on my design walls last post, and I've been basting quilts as well.

That salmon backing I finally was working on? It's pieced together, matched with it's quilt top and already basted. I didn't take a photo of it laid out. 

I basted the red and white wedding quilt, and have my machine threaded and ready to start quilting on this.

I just finished basting this quilt about an hour ago. I had planned to baste this quilt first in my little basting spree, but when I was laying it out with DH and the wide back I purchased for it, The wide back was not wide enough, and was completely wonky. The selvages were not even close to being parallel, there was at least a 4" difference. It also wouldn't lie flat. I tossed it in the dryer with some water thinking maybe the threads would relax, but that backing is not behaving at all. I had another wide backing in black, so I brought it upstairs to see if that would work. It was nice and flat, but again, not wide enough. I really don't understand that, because both backings were listed at 108" wide. Neither were that large. The quilt is about 103" square, so 108" backing should have been close but usable on a sit down machine. I refuse to cut and piece a wide backing that SHOULD have been wide enough. I got online and ordered a 116" wide backing from Backside Fabrics. They got the order out immediately, so I just left the basting table up a couple extra days and basted other quilts first.

I basted this wedding quilt first, and actually, with my one hour of FMQ per day, I've already finished quilting it. It still needs to be trimmed and bound.

I also grabbed this UFO out of the closet and basted it to go to that up and coming grand-niece I just found out about. 

So I got five quilts basted this basting spree, and I have more pins, but not the desire to baste any more quilts right now, so when DH gets home the basting tables are coming down and the living room set to rights. I still have quilts from my last basting spree that didn't get quilted, so I have plenty to keep me busy. 

I do have one more deadline quilt that needs to be finished in July, but it's not cut out yet, so no need to wait on it. My goal for the wedding quilts was July 27th, and I think I should make it. The other deadline quilt has a deadline of July 21st, but I think if I get the top finished by July 1st, I'll have no problems getting it done in time. 

In the meantime I'm still assembling quilts, and I also started making some blocks out of some bonus HST's that have been hanging around. I'm looking around the quilting studio with thoughts of, what can I get to the next stage easily enough? If it's a stack of blocks, maybe it's time to make assemble it into a quilt center. The blue Weed Whacker quilt I had on my design wall last post is together, but I still have to sew on borders. The container of bonus HST's were letting me know they were ready to be quilt blocks. I'm not really cutting anything new (even though I need to cut that dinosaur quilt for a grandson), but I am working on a bunch of stuff at once. The number of quilt tops hanging in my closet was down to 9, instead of the 20+ there were at the first of the year. Not all the ones I've basted are quilted yet, but my year long goal was to baste at least one from the closet every time I basted a deadline quilt, and I've done that. I've even finished several from the closet this year. 

I had a couple years of very low finishes, but lots of starts. I feel like this is going to be a good year for finishing.