Quilt almost done

Apparently it's becoming a "thing to do" -- I mean having quilts at a wedding for guests to sign instead of a guest book. I think it's a super idea. I was asked to make a quilt for an early summer wedding and asked to use "red and black". How do people sign on red or black? And it just doesn't seem very wedding-like to me. So this is what I came up with Black, sure enough but red in its light and bright pink ranges.
Then to comply with the bride's request the back is all in reds except for the black border. (Edit) The former pictures were in such bad color I decided my camera battery might be too low to do a decent job, so charged it and retook the pictures which are better although the reds of the back still have too much yellow. It's really much more cherry red.

As always -- my theme song -- quilting is much more labor intensive than seems logical. I'm still fighting jet lag and have been up by 4:00 each morning for over a wee and have spend a few hours each morning putting this together always expecting to get much further along than I actually did. But as of now, there are only clean up things like tread clipping a few places and fixing a couple of spots, then a hangng sleeve and label But what a lot of tiime a one patch, apparently simple quilt took.
This is a reversible quilt for which I used Sharon Pederson's book, as pictured below. She spoke to our guide a year ago and I was intrigues with her method. It's easy but also arduous. I've never been nuts for a stained glass effect but in this case it turns what would be a somewhat mundane set of squares became more interesting and I mean above and beyond the interlocking squares pattern.

Now I can finish quilting the sunburst for the quilt show and move on with new or UFO projects ... I suppose I shouldn't even think "new" but I do have a new ideas that I want to try very, very soon -- like maybe tomorrow. Thus do older UFOs settle into the dust.

Reversible Quilt making progress

Update on the progress of the reversible quilt mentioned a week or ten days ago: I've finished the 6" squares which will be the main part of the quilt. But I've decided I want to make another set of squares to become a border, possibly using triangles for a saw-tooth look. Anyway, I couldn't wait to see how it would go together. But first I read Sharon Pederson's book carefully, espcially the discussion of the binding for the squares.

Sharon wrote of auditioning fabrics for the binding. Studying her quilts I see she used wonderful taste; her bindings all add design and color beautifully. I pulled out a bunch of fabrics and contemplated them with the squares -- no design wall, just my small work space. The selvage side presented special problems, I didn't want to use the darker fabric from the other side because it's too different, but I wanted something that would connect the two. Or alternately I looked at various black/white prints. No, no, no. Finally I went to our wonderful City Quilter shop and studied fabrics a while and purchased the aqua print, after nearly choosing 3 other ones. [The choices were so many it's hard not to become paralyzed.] I had great hesitation but it's so pretty that if I got home and decided it was all wrong, I'd find a use eventually.

Then there was this dark batik that I've had a while and really didn't like very much, multicolors on purple. It seemed all wrong and yet when I laid it out, it seemed fine In fact, I now like it very much. And, as I've been sewing I like the aqua too, it may become triangles on the border of the selvage side.

So here they are together. Not too bad. I only have four rows together so far. Everything takes longer than you think it will, of course. I spent a lot of time this afternoon and that's how far I've got. The binding is tricky -- not really difficult but requires care and attention.

And here's a sample of how it's coming along. I love that it's quilted, so even though putting it together is going to take more time than I have tomorrow -- and then there'll still be the border blocks to sew and add ... we're looking at September now. When it's done, it will be done. No need to think about how to quilt it.

At this point, I like this quilt. I can tell that as it gets bigger it will be a little bit stiff and will fight me in my cramped sewing space. Ah, well, the dubious joys of being an apartment dweller.