Challenge Met and UFO done!

Back in January, the program committee at the Oxford Quilt Guild issued a challenge.  Each person that wanted to participate was asked to bring in a yard of batik material and a pair of scissors.  We stood in a big circle and listened for instructions...  Fold the fabric in half, snip it at the fold, rip it in half, drop half in front of us and pass the other half to the person on our right.  "Fold it, snip it, rip it, drop it, pass it!"  This was repeated with until each of us had 7 pieces of batik fabric in various sizes in the pile on the floor in front of us.  The challenge was to make something with our fabric, including a piece of each fabric.  We could add other fabrics to the project, if we wanted to.   Here are my seven fabrics.   

I put my fabrics in a plastic bin to give myself some time to ponder...

Then, COVID-19 arrived and the meeting where the projects were to be revealed was not to be.  Last week, it was announced that we would be having a Zoom meeting in August where we would share our challenge projects...the deadline pushed me to get this project out of the box and done this past week. 

I made some square in a square blocks and trimmed most of them to be asymmetrical.  I played around with them to figure out how to make them into a wall hanging.  (the brown patch is just my table!) I slept on it and came to the conclusion that this was not where I wanted to go with this project. 

I made some more squares, and added a few more fabrics and ended up with this. 

Next, how to quilt it...another night of sleeping on it and an idea formed. 

There are some spots where I stitched in the ditch and the line of stitching disappears, but it is there. I used turquoise thread. The binding is the same fabric as the middle square.   I hand stitched the binding on this one--one of my favourite parts of the quilt making process. 

The backing was made from stash fabric.  I'm using what I have as much as possible!

Done in plenty of time for the August meeting!

Julie, the long arm quilter, finished my Scrappy Trips quilt in no time and I trimmed it up and applied the binding by machine this week.  I sewed the binding to the front first and then folded it around to the back. I used a narrow zigzag stitch to sew it down.  My stiletto came in handy to keep the binding folded over as it entered the presser foot.  In retrospect, this would have been easier if I had sewn the binding to the back of the quilt and then did the zigzag from the front of the quilt.  Live and learn. 

Here is a picture of the quilting.  This quilt will be donated to the hospice and will be washed often and should hold up well. 

Here is the whole quilt. 

On the knitting front, I finished another dishcloth this week.  

I will likely try another pattern for my next one.  

I made a few fabric postcards over the last couple of weeks.  They are all in the mail and some have arrived at their destinations. 

My daughter finished her latest cross stitch city--Vienna. Such vibrant colours!

She sent me this picture of Finn tonight...so funny!  

He had his hair cut this week and is feeling much cooler in this hot weather. 

More garden pictures from this week...

I will link up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching in the morning.   Take a look and see what everyone is up to.  The link is in my sidebar.  I will be doing some more knitting tomorrow. 

Have a good week.