I finished up the top of my Bird quilt with a blue stripe on the sides and bottom. Then I began my search for the fabric for the backing.
To do this I look at the finished quilt and imagine the backing. A color usually pops into my head, something to compliment the front. I went though the colors imagining a brown, dark blue, red, gold. I stopped at green, maybe a blue green. That felt right. Nothing too heavy or dense, but nothing too pale either.
When I didn’t find what I was looking for on my shelves, I went into the house and looked through the boxes of fabric that Lorry sent me. Her mother had a vast collection of fabric and Lorry has sent me more than a few boxes of it over the past year. She says her mom would be happy to know it was being used.
These boxes had fabric in yards. I remembered the palm trees, but it wasn’t until I saw them again that I knew the colors were just right. And, I thought, palm trees are like the other side of winter.
I sewed the fabric together adding a bit to the bottom and one side to make it a bit bigger then 83″x 93″,the size of the top of the quilt.
Joann, who is buying “Bird” asked for a little thicker batting for the quilt. I ordered a high loft poly-fil on Saturday and was expecting it delivered on Wednesday.
So I was in no hurry to get the backing done, and after sewing it together and washing it, instead of putting it in the dryer, I hung it on the clothesline. The temperature was perfect for drying at 55 degrees with a bit of a wind. Just enough, I was hoping, to iron out some of the wrinkles.
Now with the backing drying on the line, I was thinking about what to do next. I had a couple of things in mind, but it seemed like the perfect day to replace the canvas on the top of my work table. It’s been ripped for a while and was only getting worse.
I have to pull the table away from the wall to replace the canvas and once I do that it’s hard for me not to clean under it.
And that led to me spending the next few hours, cleaning my studio. The dust bunnies were breeding and it really needed a good dusting. After that I folded, sorted and put away the fabric that was laying around from my last two quilts.
I finished by vacuuming and mopping the floor.
It was getting dark by the time the floor dried. The wind did a fine job of getting the wrinkles out of the backing fabric, but it still needed to be ironed. To make it easer for me, I wanted to do it while the fabric was still damp.
I left my studio with the quilt and backing all ready. Now all I needed was the batting. And when I went back to the house, wasn’t I happily surprised to find that it had been delivered earlier than I expected.
Tomorrow I’ll sew my Bird quilt together and start tacking it.
