Move It Forward weekend

Norma and I planned another Move It Forward sewing day for Friday since that had worked out so well for us last month.  The idea is to kick start a project that had lingered too long on the shelf.  It might be borders, binding, assembling blocks into a top.  Since I didn’t get as much done on the 4 patch posie as I hoped last month, I knew what to pull off the shelf as my choice.

First though I needed to clear up some of my “mess” from Thursday’s project.  My mom had sent that box you see below full of some 30’s scraps and fats but I had also put in my leftovers from the Cheese and Crackers top that I had recently made in there too.  I wanted to cut out a full sized version of “Two of a Kind/Cheap Trick” and started cutting my way through the box.  Two of a Kind called for 3 inch squares and 3 x 5 1/2 rectangles so I was able to just take the seam ripper to the CNC pieces as they were the same size.The larger pieces of yardage I set back but essentially I kept cutting and stacking them up into 8  color groups. 

By Friday morning I had some nice piles but no clue just how many I had towards the 240 sections that I needed.  I had worked my way through Mom’s stuff and the smaller pieces I had stored in the Longaberger basket.  I was down to a leftover pile of scraps like you see to the right of the pizza box---not sure what I want to do with them at this point so I just bagged them up for storage.  I was a bit shy of 240 but not by much. Then I pulled a little more fabric out of the stash to have at least 30 sections of each color.  The “before” and “after” pictures if you will.  Still need to cut backgrounds.
I didn’t get started back on my 4 patch posie top till after lunch. Last time out all I had gotten done was pre-sashing all 64 blocks and one row of the 8 I needed assembled.  By 9 p.m. all the rows were assembled and just the center seam left to join the top and bottom halves.  Not bad for a day’s sewing! 
The weather was awful yesterday---strong winds and lots of sirens going off.  I had to keep shutting off the computer and the sewing machine so it is wonder I got that much done.  Still, others had it far worse and the tornado warnings we had were about 12 miles north of us and 20 or so south of where we live.
I had already decided that I was NOT going to piece in a itty-bitty border cut 1 inch as the framing sashing had been done.  Instead I cut strips 1 1/4 for a flap insert between the body of the quilt and the outside border.  I had already cut and sewn the binding for the quilt but not folded and pressed it so took care of that while the iron was hot.  Pressed back the binding on the bargello quilt while I was at it as that is due up next around here.

So TADA!  Here’s the finished top----I hope it will click bigger.  (Blogger didn’t want to load pics tonight so I am writing this in Live Writer)  If not, I’ll try to replace it later.    DJ was having a little trouble holding it all the way out straight but I think you can see what the starting fabric was in the borders.  I told my mom when she called that I thought some of those iris stems were probably going to grow sideways on the top and bottom but I really did not care, LOL.

The machine is put away, pins picked up from the floor, the threads all vacuumed up.  My goal for the coming week is to get the binding done on my bargello quilt and cut the backgrounds for the “Two of a Kind.  For the rest of the evening, I think I will pull out my Santa redwork and move IT forward too.