Out to Sea Quilt is finished

All week I've been slowly working on finishing Andy's quilt. Every night I was quilting the quilt, it took about 4 nights at about 2 per night to finish. But this time I did it a little differently....I did NOT baste the quilt first, which saved me a LOT of time. My batting and material that I bought was about a foot too wide, so I decided that, since I'm just going to do a stitch in the ditch on the rows, that I'll just stitch down the left side edge of the quilt with a 1/4" seam (doesn't matter if I'm going to be covering with binding). When done with that, I took it a bigger area, like the living room, plopped down on the couch and just smoothed it out enough to pin the next row. This is when I decided to stitch in the ditch. Then I just repeated for the rest of the rows, but the further along I got the harder it was to, so after about the 12th row, I turned the quilt around ( this way I did not have a lot of rolled up quilt to fit through the opening of the sewing machine). Now all I need to do was bind the quilt.

Joanns is having another one of their HUGE sales, where a lot of items are 50% off, which is a great time to buy fabric. So, went to go see if I could find something to make the binding. I found several items, but I ended up with a shirting material that is pinstripe white in the Red Tag fabrics, which was 50% off.




The whole to finishing the quilt is so we can take it with us to lay on the ground tonight for when we go see the fireworks!

I've also been busy with the Pop Garden quilt. I've got the back piece finished now.

Front

Back

I couldn't get a good picture of the front, I think you can get a idea of it.

Another Note:
Yesterday, I went to Shipshewana, IN with my mom. It's about an hour away from Fort Wayne, IN, but so worth it. I like the Flea Market, but some of the vendors do get boring at times....I mostly like the produce and antique section. From the Flea Market, we went to the downtown shops, which is where a found a little piece of heaven...Lollys Fabric Store. I could have gone on a fabric shopping spree, if only I have brought more money with me.

But the real reason for the whole trip was to buy myself a drying rack. The flimsy drying rack that I bought at Walmart broke on me....the top rung broke which is the same rung that holds the whole thing up. So, at Yoder's Hardward (across from Town & Country) is where a got this...

This beast comes to my nose (which I'm 5'10") and so worth every dollar that I paid for it ($50.00). I believe it's built by one of the locals, most likely Amish, so this drying rack is going to last a long time.

And oh yeah, I asked the clerk where I bought this if it was one huge store and she told me, "NO! Three stores under one roof." The reason for asking was because the was a HUGE fabric store there too and a little grocery section.

So, the next time I need fabric, I'll being taking the quaint little drive up the Shipshewana.