Binding the Herringbone Quilt

I felt very 'Pride and Prejudice' sitting in the ballroom at Highwic binding my quilt on Sunday morning. (I quite like the idea of living during that time. Then or with the Ingalls family in their Little House on the Prairie. Or with the Waltons on Waltons' Mountain.)

It's not a particularly well-balanced quilt. I decided the quilt was too narrow, so added an extra row and by then I had used up a couple of the fat quarters so I had to introduce a new one. Pretty sure the unbalancedness won't affect the snuggliness. I do like the backing and the blue binding. Job done.

I should get on with finishing the tree quilt and quilting the red hexagons at some stage. But it's almost the end of term and I am trying to get my marking finished before the holidays!

Quilting the Herringbone

I started basting this (old school style with safety pins) so I could start hand quilting it during my stint as chief question answerer at our exhibition, but things didn't go as planned.

I thought I might as well try machine quilting it. So I ruled 1.5" from each lengthwise seam. If I had more skill, I would like to have quilted it along the herringbone lines.

The backing is a $6 Spotlight special called Gumboot Garden. It was inches too narrow, so I added a strip of purple sketch. (I am not a fan of pieced backings.)

It is my best machine quilting to date ... not that there is much to compare it to and it is only straight lines. But this time there are no puckers anywhere, my stitch length is nice and even and the tension on the back is pretty good. What I like best is two hours of work versus about one month! If I could machine quilt for real, I could make loads more quilts.

Low Volume Herringbone

This is the result of raiding Helen's stash -

I am annoyed that I didn't spread out the pretty pink floral better and that close to the centre I have two fabrics the same. Grrr.

I got the idea from this lovely quilt when I googled 'low volume quilts'. It wasn't what I had planned at all - I was thinking about a 'plus' quilt. I can't find the tutorial I used, but my take on it was to cut 4.5" x 11" rectangles and then angle each short end to 60 degrees. It used between 7 and 8 fat quarters. 

The next step is to square it up and baste it for quilting. Given the short deadline (start of Nov) and my lack of free weekends between now and then, and my already planned holidays, I may be forced to machine quilt it. Yuk.