Finish!

Campfire Memories is officially finished, right down to the label added just before supper last night!

This was such a fun quilt to put together, so much scrappy goodness here, bringing back memories of nearly every quilt I've made over the past twenty or so years, blog giveaway winnings, yard-sale finds, plus other bits of fabric that found their way into the stash totes along the way.

Tried a few shots outside but the colors were a bit way too washed out in the late evening light and beyond my photoshop skills to bring back.  I'd planned to try again this morning but it's a chilly 48 degrees with heavy dew on the fields so we're going with my indoor shots from last evening.

A close-up of the quilting, all stitched on the Janome Horizon using the even-feed foot. Seemed to take forever with all the starts/stops in every corner to change direction, but I do love the star-effect in the sashings.  Each of the 4 inch string blocks was quilted in the ditch along the outer edge of the blocks, then the X patterns were quilted in each of the sashings and corner blocks.  The quilting may be a bit more visible in this next photo of the back.

Just enough quilting to hold the layers together but not lose that soft cuddly feeling when wrapping up in this one, which I plan to do - a lot - there's another New York winter coming in a few months after all!

I had originally planned on using Hobbs Polydown batting for this quilt, but grandson #2 was here while I was putting the top together, and asked me who the quilt was for.  When I told him it was staying at our house (for now) and it was called Campfire Memories, he immediately responded "so when we have campfires down by the creek in the summer I can take it out and stay warm with it." Umm, not if you want to live a long and happy life buddy!  Well.  That put an end to the thought of poly batting for this one.  Just in case someone does sneak it out of the house and next to a campfire, we went with Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting.  Just seemed like it would be a tiny bit safer.  Just in case.

The stats:  From a pattern in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine (July/August 2013) in which Marianne Fons based her quilt on an antique quilt she had seen; finished size 86x63 inches; string blocks pieced on Casey Jones, my go-to, all-time favorite piecing machine, a vintage 1950s black Singer 301a; machine quilted on the Janome Horizon; Aurifil 50 wt. thread used throughout; Hobbs 80/20 cotton batting.

Today I'll need to knuckle-down and weed the veggie garden (again) and probably mow the lawn (sigh) though I'd really rather be prepping appliques for some evening sewing.  Maybe tomorrow ...