Where have I been?

I have been sewing, sewing, sewing!!! First, thanks to Jennifer for nominating me for a Kreativ Blogger award, and I will respond when I have a little more time to think. Five of the six quilt tops are now complete, and two of the quilts are totally finished. Jimmy's Steeler quilt was the first done. I bought 5" precut squares from ebay, and put together nine-patches. (Photos to come soon) George's quilt is also done. He likes red and black, and I wanted something quick, simple and yet impressive. On Quilter's Cache (www.quilterscache.com) I found a pattern called Anvil. (Thanks to Mama Bear) Since it was basically Half-square triangles and Squares, it was quick. So, it's also completely finished. I have the tops for Mary and Kristin's finished and the backs are pieced, so now I have to layer them and get them quilted. I don't usually sandwich quilts, as most of you know, so I'm a little nervous about starting these. But as they say, nothing ventured -- nothing gained.

Pat Sloan has a way of putting binding on by machine (totally by machine) and although I've tried it in the past, I never really cared for it. But I have some of my greatest ideas in the middle of the night and this just came to me. I tried using my walking foot to apply the binding. The hole in my walking foot,(for lack of a better word) is wide enough for zigzag stitching, and so after pulling my binding to the front, I used decorative stitches on my sewing machine to sew down the binding. And, the mitred corners were always a problem for me because they didn't want to feed evenly. Well, this doofus finally figured out that I needed to fold the corners the opposite way from what I usually do, and voila!!! neat mitred corners. So, I have done that on both the quilts that are done, and it looks great. I may get these quilts done yet before Christmas. I'm hoping to get Mary and Kristin's done by the end of the weekend, and that just leaves the Twins' to go. Just for the record, these are just lap type quilts which measure about 45" x 58". Nothing earthshattering in size. Have a great quilty weekend.