A Joint Project - Hand and Machine Sewing

My friend, Michelle, has decided that machine sewing isn't her thing but she loves hand sewing. I, on the other hand, will take any opportunity to avoid hand sewing.! Michelle has made all these lovely hexagon flowers from scraps. I was glad to help when she asked if I could put all the blocks together. During the process, we discussed and consulted each other about the fussy cutting, colour  scheme, and layout of the quilt. I, then, made up the backing from the left over fabrics Michelle already had, quilted the quilt top for her, on my wonderful Gammill Statler, of course, and with the new CS6 software, it's fantastic. I chose the pattern named 'Daisies Galore' by Irene Steele for the quilt. After the quilting was done, I attached the binding. It's now ready to be sewn down, by Michelle's hands, not mine. :-) She has plenty of time to finish off the binding as the quilt is going to be a birthday present for her second daughter, Caitlin, towards the end of the year.

Nearly done....

Considering that I have been kept very busy with quilting for other lovely quilters, I'm pleased with the progress up to this point, knowing for sure that I will be able to enter my quilt to this year Sydney Quilt Show by the closing date in a week or so from now. :-)

I was actually trying to get the quilt top, my 'Winter Star Quilt', for the Show done yesterday, but spending time outside with good company and beautiful afternoon weather was hard to resist.... The quilt top is kind of done this evening and ready to be quilted - a quilting pattern has already been chosen.

  

I had to buy the backing fabric from Hawthorne Threads in the US after trying unsuccessfully to find fabric that I had in mind for the backing locally.

I know too well that it would take a lot longer to get the binding done after the quilting if I didn't have the binding ready to be attached to the quilted quilt. I like to handstitch the binding down on the back of the quilt and this step actually takes the longest time for me to complete a quilt.!