An April Finish Ready for Fall

Somehow this quilt speaks to me of fall, maybe it's the caramel background of the outer borders, or more likely the deeper shades used in the baskets.  At any rate the last stitch in the binding happened around 9:00 a.m. this morning, quickly followed by a little camera session.  Warning - photo heavy post follows!

First a quick trip to the guest bed to check for any unsnipped thread ends, etc. and a rather uninspired first photo.

A few of my favorite baskets.

Sun is shining, wind is blowing, time for some outdoor photos. Ahh, the green-green grass of spring!

The quilt is from a pattern in Fons and Porter's Fat Quarter Friendly book.  Theirs was called French Country Strippy.

I ditch quilted the vertical seams and perimeter of the basket blocks on the Janome, and then hand quilted the remainder with Gutermann thread.  After washing it measures 96 x 78-1/2 inches.

The back, nothing fancy, just slabs of leftover fabric.

Completing this quilt was my One Monthly Goal for April, and I'm happily linking this finish with Patty at Elm Street Quilts as well as Wendy's Peacock Party.

In the photo that follows you can see a red bird feeder on the post in the background.  Until last week there was a suet finder attached to said post.  One evening between dusk and 11 p.m. we had an unseen large black visitor who pulled the post nearly all the way to the ground, took the split rail fence behind it apart, and then made off into the woods with the suet feeder.  This was after completely destroying another feeder in the front yard.

We're thinking it was a return visit from this culprit who also loves niger seed feeders set out for our summer goldfinch residents.

Tutti Frutti is a Finish!

This morning at long last the finishing stitches were put in the binding and I'm calling Tutti Frutti a finish!  Of course there's still the label, but that will be sewn on at Quilt Ministry tomorrow.  For now I'm just basking in the long-awaited thrill of finally having this one finished!

No outdoor glamour shots of this one as we're in the midst of a rainy spell rendering all my favorite areas muddy and unusable.  Pretty gloomy inside this morning as I took these photos.

A closer look 

The main portion was quilted with a version of Angela Walters Leafy Meander design.  Fun to do except over those dratted seam intersections where the FMQ foot wanted to bog down.  Toward the end of quilting this portion I discovered a little adjustment on the foot allowing it to rest a bit higher from the fabric surface.  Duh!  Having not paid much attention to the manual that came with the machine I wasn't aware this adjustment even existed, and since the foot had worked well the first couple years my suspicion is that the little adjustment dial was inadvertently moved a smidgeon every time the foot was installed or removed from the machine.  Lesson learned - always refer to the owners manual when difficulties arise - sometimes they are even helpful!!  Ahem ...

Borders quilted with spineless feathers

Back corner

The quilting shows up even more nicely on the back of the quilt that was pieced with leftover slabs of  a couple of the fabrics used on the front.

As mentioned in a previous post, this was based on a pattern of the same name from Pam and Nicky Lintott's book Jelly Roll Quilts in a Weekend.  A misnomer in my case as this quilt has been in the works for about three months now!  I added an additional row of blocks and the border to bring the quilt to a more desirable size for the benefit auction.  Fabrics came from a donated fat eighth bundle and my scraps.  I used Hobbs 80-20 cotton-poly batting and quilted this on my domestic Janome 7700 using Aurifil 50 wt. thread for both top and bobbin.  Finished size about 72x72 inches.

And now -
In other news, a few evenings back this fellow showed up in our side yard garden just before sunset. 

Pulled down the pole holding the finch feeder, crunched it up and was busy eating niger seed when we discovered him.

Looking rather proud of himself.  These first two photos are about 20 feet from the house!

Rats, I've been discovered!

Western New York version of BigFoot!  The blueberry netting is just visible along the right edge of this photo.  Thankfully he headed off to the woods and has left our blueberries alone ... so far.