Bento Bento Bento!

I finally made it to a fabric shop to grab more Soul Blossoms to back the Bento Box quilt that I've been working on. I decided to use the Temple Tulips pattern from the Bliss colorway. Only if fabric was wider than 44 inches!

I had to come up with a strip of fabric to finish off the backing...I actually didn't end up going with any of those colors. I went with a more subdued blue that matched one of the colors in the backing fabric a little bit better.

Then the basting began. I used my favorite new thing on Earth, SPRAY BASTING! Man is it the easiest and quickest way to baste. The only downside is that it can get pretty expensive. At Joann's, the can is $15.99 per bottle. For this quilt I didn't even use an entire bottle, but I think that I came pretty close. Thankfully I had a 50% off coupon so it wasn't as expensive.

A fully basted quilt all ready to go ...
 

Then I did the usual... lay out the quilt and stare at it for a while until I figure out how to quilt it... thing.

I opted for straight-line quilting. Around each pieced bento box block, I quilted 3 straight lines, 1/4 inch apart:
 

 Here are some action shots:

 

All quilted!

Then I trimmed up with quilt and got it all ready for binding... I should probably rummage through my stash and figure out what I'm going to use for that...

Next on my list is figuring out binding...


xoxo

As promised . . .

I hope that everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I am still full!

Here is an update to the Anna Maria Horner Good Folks double hourglass mug rugs (whew!) started here. 

The strips were pieced and ready to be cut into these beauties:

(waiting to be pressed before the final sewing)

  (all pressed)

(in the sewing queue)

 (8 fully pieced double hourglass blocks, measuring about 8.5 x 8.5)

Then, I trimmed up all of the blocks to measure about 8.25 x 8.25 inches:

 (Notice the change in pattern here? This was a major woopsie, but I ended up really liking it, so I may be doing a quilt using this pattern)

 

(Notice the SECOND change in pattern here? This was another "WTF, really Lauren?", but I ended up really liking it, so I may be doing a quilt using this pattern as well)

Then, I cut 9 pieces of batting to measure 9 x 9 inches (I used Warm and White 100% cotton batting):

Lastly, for today anyway, I basted the mug rugs. I used 4 pins per block and thought that was more than enough. For the backing, I used a 9 x 9 square of the Good Folks fabric on the front of the block. I forgot to get a picture of that, woops!:

Overall (so far):

I am happy with them so far. However, it does take a long time to get everything together when you are improv-ing. I should have planned better so that I only had to pull out the cutter once. I also think that I need to stop ironing so much. If I am having a quilting afternoon, I will literally have the iron on for 6 hours and be using it throughout. Maybe OCD?

What's next? Quilting and binding. I am going to practice stippling (meandering) because I have never used that stitch yet. The thought of it makes me start to sweat a little bit with fear. This should be interesting. I am also going to try machine binding. I think that these little mug rugs will be a great tool to try out stippling and machine binding. Hopefully I will have more to report soon!

xoxo