TGIFF August 21, 2026: Scrappy Celebrations Pieced Backing + My ETERNAL HOME RENOVATIONS!

Hello, and welcome to TGIFF "Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday."  As I begin writing this post on Thursday evening, it is already two minutes past the deadline by which I was supposed to have published the post and forwarded the link along to Laura.  Those of you who know me will not be surprised that I am down to the wire... again!  If you are unfamiliar with the TGIFF linky party, click here to learn more about it.

So let's get on with it!  I'll kick off with my underwhelming sewing related finish: After completing my Scrappy Celebrations quilt top on July 29th, I finally got around to piecing a backing for this quilt using stash yardage and leftover backing scraps from other quilts.  Here you see my final step of checking that the backing is indeed big enough for the margins I need when I load it on my long arm frame.  Measuring is all well and good, but sometimes rulers lie -- my eyes can tell me immediately if I've goofed when I lay the quilt top right on top of my backing and check how much backing sticks out all the way around the quilt top.

Yes, My Backing Is Big Enough to Load On My Long Arm Machine

Here you can see the pieced backing itself, oriented sideways as I'm planning to load this quilt sideways and quilt it with a non-directional design:

Pieced Backing Turned Sideways

The gray and pink floral is a JoAnn's print that I picked up on sale years ago when I got my first long arm machine, and I was going to use it for quilting practice before I realized that solids make for better practice fabrics as you want to be able to see your mistakes in order to improve.  I just ripped off a long enough piece of that yardage, then snipped and ripped it in half near the center bolt fold line, and inserted an 18" wide combination of Kaffe Fassett circles and a bubblegum pink Tula Pink print.  Those fabrics already had been ripped on grain and seamed together because it was leftover from another quilt backing, and it was just enough to widen the JoAnn print to fit my quilt with margins for pinning to the leaders and attaching to the side clamps.  All pressed and ready to load!  My next task will be figuring out which batting to use, cutting that to size, and actually getting this quilt loaded and quilted.  Let's be honest with each other: my original plan was to have this quilt actually quilted and not just be showing you that I made the backing today, but this is the Real Life Happens edition of TGIFF.  I've been distracted by other things finally finishing -- THANK GOODNESS! -- with my house this week.  

Custom Quilting Progress on the 1984 Sampler Quilt

Good morning and Happy Thursday!  I've been making progress with the custom quilting on my friend's circa 1984 sampler quilt.  There are certain editing tools and features in Q-Matic (the computer robotics package that enables me to quilt digitally with my Bernina Q24 long arm machine) that don't get used in edge-to-edge quilting, and I'm learning more about how to use them to size and skew digital quilting designs to fit inside the imperfect shapes of patchwork pieced by humans.  My friend Marybeth is being extremely patient; I think I've had this quilt in my possession for six months at least, and most of that time I've been procrastinating and agonizing and catastrophizing about all of the ways I might mess it up...  But I'm feeling better about it now and I think it's going to look pretty good when it comes off the frame and I can see it as a whole instead of zooming in on every little imperfection.

Digital Block Design with Digital Sashing Design

I'm trying to balance out the different types of quilting throughout the quilt.  I think I have maybe three blocks like the one above where I've stitched one digital design across the entire block.  That can be quite lovely when it's a good pairing between the quilting design and the patchwork.  I did stitch in the ditch quilting in the patchwork seams prior to stitching the block design but some quilters would choose to just do the block design to save time (and to save money, if someone was paying for the custom quilting).

P2P Triangle Design with Separate Digital Motif in Block Center

In the block above, I quilted a P2P (Point to Point) digital design one at a time in each of the red print triangles.  Then I quilted a separate digital design in the center of the block.  I'll go back later and quilt the red and blue solid patches, probably straight line quilting with rulers.  I'm learning (belatedly!) that it's more efficient to do all of one type of quilting throughout the quilt before moving on to a different type of quilting.  When I started working on this quilt I knew enough to do all of my basting and SID (Stitch In the Ditch quilting along all the seam lines) throughout the entire quilt before rolling back up to the top of the quilt to start on the fun quilting that actually shows, but then I tried to quilt one row completely (digital designs, ruler work, free motion quilting, multiple thread color changes etc) before moving on to the next row.  

NEW Quilting Book Review: Perfectly Pieced Quilt Backs by Kelly Young

In today's post, we're taking a brand-new quilt book for a test drive: Perfectly Pieced Quilt Backs by Kelly Young, available here on Amazon.  (Full disclosure: this post contains affiliate links, and I was provided with a free advance copy of this book so I could review it for you).  Overachiever that I am, I made not one but TWO of the pieced backing projects in this book, and I will be using this book for a lot more than just quilt backings...  I'll get to that later!

Initially I was interested in this book as a resource to keep in my office for the times when clients come to drop off a quilt for long arm quilting and their backing doesn't quite meet my minimum size requirements.  I run into this issue a lot, especially with the charity quilting I do for the Outreach program of the Charlotte Quilters' Guild.  When the volunteers on the Outreach team put fabric kits together for our members to take and sew, they often size the backing fabric just a few inches larger than the quit top should finish.  That works great for guild members who are quilting on a domestic machine, but it doesn't give me the allowances I need for loading the backing onto the canvas leaders of my long arm frame.  The first project I'm sharing from Kelly's book is the simplest one in there, and it was the perfect solution for enlarging a too-small backing for one of these guild outreach quilts.

First Pieced Backing: Walking Path

I Just Love How the Quilting Shows Up on the Plain Old Muslin Strip!

I didn't have any leftovers from this patriotic themed quilt top to work with, so I just cut a wide strip of plain old boring muslin and inserted it into the original backing fabric following Kelly's instructions for the Walking Path backing.  Once quilted, the muslin looks terrific.  I just love how the quilting design that is completely lost against that busy navy print fabric springs to life on the muslin strip!  That quilting design I used is Feathered Spirals E2E, designed by Jess Ziegler, stitched in So Fine 50 wt thread, color Snow, and I used the Pellon 80/20 With Scrim batting provided by my guild.

 

Here's the front of that quilt:

CQG Donation Quilt with Feathered Spiral E2E

Isn't it pretty?  I forgot to write down the dimensions of that quilt before I turned it in at our guild meeting for another member to bind.  With the Americana themed fabric prints, this quilt will likely be given to a child who is hospitalized over the Independence Day holiday.  Most of our donation kit quilts have very simple piecing, and the "walking path" pieced backing with a single contrast strip is a great choice for enlarging the backing without making it compete for attention with the quilt top.  But, flipping through the book there were so many other fun ideas...  

Sarah's Chevron Memory Quilt, Lazy Day Quilt Progress + Pineapple Nostalgia Quilt Back from the Cleaners

Good morning and happy Tuesday, friends!  I have so much to share with you today, so let's dive into it.  First up is a lovely, snuggly flannel-backed Chevron Memory quilt that my client Sarah made in remembrance of her grandmother.

Sarah's Chevron Memory Quilt

70 x 90 Chevron Memory Quilt with Filigree E2E Quilting

Sarah pieced this quilt while working through the flood of emotions following the sudden passing of her beloved grandmother, incorporating some of her clothing into the quilt top and pieced backing as well as new fabrics with novelty print themes that reminded her of her grandmother.  We chose the Filigree pantograph design because it reminded Sarah of her grandmother's lace tatting and I knew it would give Sarah the loosely quilted, old-fashioned feel she wanted for this project.

Sarah's Pieced Backing, Flannels and Regular Wovens, with Filigree E2E quilting

Okay, so when Sarah first reached out to me about this quilt, she warned me that it was only her second quilt ever when she started it three years ago, that it was "full of flaws" and learning experiences, etc.  I was bracing myself for there to be challenges for me to work around -- and then this beautifully pieced top and pieced backing showed up in the mail.