Advice from home -- finished!

Advice from home, 56 by 60

free-pieced letters and houses, machine quilted

click to enlarge

This week I officially finished this long in process quilt: Advice from Home.

It features words I say over and over to my sons,

and houses with words--and advice--on them.

Some of the words are gibberish, since I'm convinced

my sons just hear "blah, blah, blah"

when I remind them to make their beds

or brush their teeth.

Here's the back.

I finished the label too many years ago!

I didn't know how to quilt this.

I didn't want to hand quilt it

and I did rent time on the longarm at a local quilt shop.

They didn't take time to show me how to use it properly

and when I was half done, the thread tension on the back was so terrible

I took the quilt off the long arm and picked out all the stitching.

Finally, last summer I quilted it on my new Juki.

Here's the son who officially no longer needs

advice from home,

since he turned 18 this week.

Originally I had hoped to get this to twin size,

but the quilt told me that a throw size was fine.

Two small finishes, measuring 14 by 15 inches 

Love 

and Joy, two sides of the same quilt

being used to hang from the lecturn

at a nursing home where my friend is a chaplain.

I'm linking up with AmandaJean's Finish it up Fridays.

I need advice on my advice quilt

My Advice From Home Quilt for Tonya's class has been together for several weeks, but I finally got a human quilt holder in place so I could get a picture. It measures about 55 by 60, more square than I had wanted, and a bit short for a throw for a tall teenage boy. I'm considering taking off the bottom border and adding another row of something -- maybe my son's names with some hearts, or some more word fabric. But I can't decide.

Meanwhile, a little thrift shopping unearthed this vintage linen calendar towel from 1975. It's well worn, but I thought it was worth 25 cents. It's so green and gold and 70s, yet not so different from recent prints in fabrics and clothes. I'm going to use it for pockets on a tote bag that some lucky person will get for Christmas.

I made this 12-inch square wreath block yesterday when I was supposed to be writing a term paper. It's probably the only Christmas-type sewing I'm going to do. No real plans for it -- I just wanted to test out the pattern.

The extra hour was worth it

I used the extra hour yesterday to sew, puzzling out how to put the houses and words and trees together in the Advice from Home quilt. This picture of it lying on my sewing room floor shows it sewn together (mostly) in rows. It went together surprisingly well. I have to square up the components before I sew the five rows together, and then I'll figure out a border.
Blogger tells me this is my 100th post. see the one below for my giveway in honour of that landmark. Since I'm a scrap quilter, I'm giving away a big bag of scraps, plus a quilt top.

Word for the day

Another word of advice for my advice from home quilt in progress pictured below. This is all the sewing I got to this weekend. I have a presentation for a university class this afternoon that I worked on instead. My desk is in the same room as my sewing room, so I could look at my quilts, but didn't get to play with fabric except for 45 minutes sewing this word. Every house has some advice, good, bad, or totally nonsense in it, and I've made these words: wash, brush, love, call, rush, hush. I've got a few more, and then I'll put it together.