Quilt Wisdom: It's Not Finished 'Til It's Labelled

What is with me? I'm an old-fashioned housewife, making quilts, knitting socks, cooking (not altogether willingly) dinner from scratch most nights but absolutely in love with science fiction. I've been watching Firefly on Hulu. Good show! Well, I guess that's just me: Stuck in the past, dreaming of the future... Okay, self-examination complete.

Wahoo! The Second Christmas Scrap Quilt is done! I love that word--DONE! Originally known as "The Girl," it is now
I finished sewing down the label during the Women's All-Around Gymnastics last night. I won't say who won just in case you haven't seen it yet.

Three for the Price of One!

Four, actually. I participated in a quilt block swap back in November. Most of the blocks I kept, but I sent out and received back quite a few. The total number of these 8.5" Double Four-Patch blocks is

87.

Well, I thought that would make a nice bed size quilt. That was before I thought about finishing a nice bed size quilt. Molly's a normal-sized machine and a muscular quilter might fit a twin sized quilt in there, but a queen: no way! So I pulled out the most masculine 30 and made a quilt for my dad a few months ago. (No, I don't have a picture.) That left

57.

I put them away for a while until I could figure out what to do with 'em. So Thursday night, when everything was going wrong, I pulled 'em out to see what could be done. You quilters know that multiplication comes into creating a layout. 5 blocks x 6 blocks makes a 30 block quilt, 4 blocks x 5 blocks makes a 20 block quilt and so on. Well, I started laying 'em out and noticed that many of the blocks I made had a brick-red color going on, so I put 'em together. Turns out there were 20. Here's the layout:
That left

37.

That was when I noticed some were softer colors, so I put them together. And there were just 20. That's another 4 x 5 quilt.
So then I had a few leftover:

17.

Well, you probably know that's a prime number and unless I want a quilt that's 1 block by 17 blocks, I'd have to do something else. So I pulled one out. And I was left with a group of bolder, saturated colors.
So now I have one leftover and 3 quilts to finish. I already have the fabric for borders, binding, and backs. What does that mean? I gotta get back to work.

PS: This is what's left of the binding for my second Christmas scrap quilt. I need a name! The first one was called "The Economics of Christmas", because everything was free except of course my time. I'd like to keep it in that vein: a subtle reminder that a person doesn't have to spend to have something nice.

The Boy

Here's the back for the larger Christmas quilt. For now, I'm calling it "The Boy." As you can see, the back is scrappy, too. Every single piece of fabric in this quilt was free! Neat, huh?

I decided to machine quilt it, but not bind it. I just sewed the "quilt sandwich" and "birthed it." (For you non-quilters, that means sewing the batting, back, and front together and then turning it right-side out, so that the batting is inside.)
Even the batting was free: leftover white felt from another project! I used two layers because one was just too thin.

What's this? Are there hundreds of colorful bugs eating away at my lovely quilt? Nope. These are safety pins with handles! I bought the handles and gave them and the tool to my DD, who happily attached them all for me. (But don't ask her to do more unless you're willing to pay--she's gotten wise to me!)

I have decided to use this quilt to experiment with pattern quilting. I drew a simple flower pattern on each block and will take it to the machine. Eep! I'm a little nervous about the whole thing. The markings should come off with water.