Prismatic Progression is another finish!

It's taken me months to complete this quilt, but as UFOs go, that's not bad. This year I signed up for Eleanor Burns' 2013 Signature Pattern Party, receiving a pattern once a month with a live feed video showing how she does her magic and displaying lots of variations of each pattern made Eleanor and by different quilters in her entourage. I got caught up in life and have only made the first pattern from this year's series, but plan to do the others over time. It feels great to finally finish her Zig-a-Zag that I started some time ago... like maybe back in March? So, here's how it started--getting the several-year-old jelly roll out of a tote. And then completing the top, going on to the back and quilting it. And finally finishing the last couple rows of quilting and binding, and it's done! Hurray!

It was almost twilight when I went outside to take pictures. After hanging a rope across the fence dividing the patios my neighbors & I share, I took pix of the front and back. I love the way the leftover pieces look chained together in the floating border. I didn't try to make them go all the way around, but instead started two strips at one corner and pieced them across the top and down the side as far as they would go and the same down the side and across the border. It adds character, don't you think?

For the back, I decided to use some of the bundle of rainbow hand-dyed fabrics I had purchased at the MQS DreamCatcher Quilt Show in Wichita, KS, earlier this year. I wanted to add some sort of splash to the back and one strip from each piece, staggered down the center of the back worked just the right amount of magic I was looking for. 

What I didn't expect, but should have, was for those fabrics to bleed. I hadn't used hand-dyed fabrics before and so, even putting a couple of color catchers in with the wash wasn't enough to keep it from bleeding to the front. Fortunately it's only noticeable in two places along the yellow stripe where you can see where the green and red bled through.

Unless you look closely, it's not really noticeable, which for a quilt I plan to keep and use, is okay by me. I'll know better next time!

With summer winding down, my time will only be my own for a couple more weeks. Then Jacob comes back three days a week when my son-in-law starts school again. Jacob will be in daycare two days a week to start him getting used to being around other kids and to give me a little more flexibility to be working on my own school work and quilting projects. This weekend Ali & Ross went out with friends to celebrate her birthday and Jacob spent the night with me. I guess he has spent so much time in my glider with me when he was little, he thinks it's his! Every time I turn around now he's climbing into my chair and reaching for the remote. What a little man! 

I'm happy to share it with him as we read books and watch Sprout together. The summer has been great fun, but I'm happy to be getting back into the routine of having him here as well.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz