Fabric of the Year 2010 Top & Back

FOTY 2010 Top
FOTY 2010 Top

As I mentioned in the Zig Zaggy post, I am working on finishing tasks for a number of quilts. One of the tasks I finished was the back of the FOTY 2010.

The Zig Zaggy quilt back was miserable to make because I used too many small pieces. I put it aside 4 or 6 months ago and I hadn’t finished it when I started the FOTY 2010 back.

I decided that I would try and use similar colors instead of using all variety of colors. Is this a new way of making backs? I don’t know, but found it a lot easier to use big pieces instead of a bunch of fat quarters. The process went faster and wasn’t so frustrating. It also didn’t take up an entire weekend to make one back. I think that using a similar color will be better for the quilting. I think it will help the quilting stitches blend in.

Building the Back
Building the Back

I built the back on the design wall, which I found to be a lot easier than trying to lay it out on the floor. I really like having a second design wall, as I think I said.

I had the Metro Coffee fabric I had saved to use. The Metro Coffee fabric was printed in such a way that made it too much of a pain to use for another bag. I found another large of piece of fabric in a similar color.

In addition, I used number of the fabrics from this year, but I also used a fabric or two from one of my fabric bins.

Somehow, I found using similar colors was a lot easier to make than using many different colors. I think it took out one decision from the process of making the back.

FOTY 2010 Back Finished
FOTY 2010 Back Finished

I don’t know what has gotten into me with this finishing jag. I think some factors were: not having enough time to sew for a week or so which made just want to sew as quickly as possible. Bringing a quilt to the quilter and knowing she could do a just a little more for me made me get on with the bindings so I would be farther ahead when I got the quilts back. I also think that talking with Colleen about three quilts ma and then made me see the possibilities if I did just a bit more work to get more quilts to her. I am behind on FOTY 2010 and  finishing the FOTY 2010 top made me want to try and catch up on it.

I knew I would have a good chunk of time on the weekend to sew, so I got a bug in my ear to move through some of the finishing tasks. I also knew that I didn’t want to spend all of my weekend sewing finishing tasks, which doesn’t seem like creative sewing to me. Since I had a bit of time during the week, and small amounts of time are great for making bindings, I decided to make the bindings for the 3 quilts (Frosted Stars, Frosted Stars Leftovers and the Purple Quilt) which are currently being quilted. I also made the binding for FOTY 2010 and will make one for the Zig Zaggy quilt.

It is great that my longarm quilter will machine sew the bindings to the front of the quilt for me. I normally do it myself, but, this week, I decided that having her do it would move the process along a bit quicker.

On my list for this year is finishing one of my UFOs. I need to move through some of these other projects before I can get to that UFO. I have been trying to move projects past the piecing process before I start something new. I am trying to move some of these projects past that point.