ONLY PLUSES picnic quilt finish!

After almost a month in Utah, we are settled in nicely.  Someone from the opera company generously loaned me her Bernina (getting spoiled with Swiss engineering already), and I was able to finish quilting and binding my new picnic quilt.

There was so much that went right on this one, and I am so relieved!  Our old picnic quilt is great, but needed some subtle improvements for PQ 2.0.

First off, our Crazy 9 Patch Lattice picnic quilt was just a wee bit small for the three of us (70" x 50").  I expanded it just a bit all around (80" x 60").  Not a lot bigger, but just enough to accommodate all of us, our snacks and toys for a day in the park.

Second, the cotton batting just wasn't working for me.  It was too damp after a picnic, and as we don't have a dryer at home, it was a pain to air out post-picnic.  We often skipped the picnic quilt altogether in favor of a twin sheet much of the time.  This was because it's light to carry and easy to wash and dry.  After considering a poly batting, I decided to skip the batting and use a flat sheet.  Some other bloggers suggested it, and it made perfect sense for our purposes.

Lastly, I wanted to use earth tones: not only to blend in with the grass, but also to mask any possible dirt or grass stains :)  Oh, and since I had lots of 4" x 4" green leftovers from my sister's Duck Duck Berry Duck quilt, it made assembly that much faster!

I pieced the top back in NYC.

 Late night feet- putting the puzzle pieces together after toddler's bedtime (and mine, probably).

I added a few new fabrics to the mix, and didn't just use up all of the leftovers from sis's quilt (and I always mean to do, but never end up doing).  I WANT to be efficient and use all the scraps, but if they don't all really fit for a project, I can't bring myself to "settle" with what's in the scrap bag...

So we loaded up the bags (6 checked! but THANKS Southwest for the gratis check-in!) and moved (temporarily) to Utah!  Our apartment here is so much bigger, and the linoleum kitchen floor was a perfect space to baste my quilt.

That was a DREAM!  At home I have to roll up the carpet in the living room!!  Also, check out how the design on the floor mirrors the pluses in the quilt...cool!  I went with a light green twin flat sheet (from Walmart)- in keeping with the green theme and won't show thru.

Didn't bring basting pins, but was able to borrow a few hundred safety pins from the costume department!  They even let me come in after hours and iron everything on their super hard-core ironing table with industrial iron!  That thing was a revelation - Thanks Phil!!!

I watch Kill Bill on Netflix while basting with my 300 pins...maybe I should have watched the movie "300"- probably would have been equally gory (not really my thing).

I straight-line quilted on the Bernina, and I am looking forward to FMQ'ing on that sweet machine before I leave here in August.  Beautiful stitches and deep harp space- I am in heaven!  Didn't take any pictures, though...to anxious to finish :)

My wife and I dropped the little one off at the local gymnastics club, which has a Friday night "Parents Night Out".  For $10 your kid can jump on trampolines and run around the sprung floors, eat pizza and cry for their mommies for 3 hrs while we have fun- YAY!  We decided to hike to the top of a mountain nearby and do a photo shoot for the latest finish!

We had literally 5 minutes at top, as it was a tougher and slower hike than we had anticipated.  The wind was fierce, and I was practically blown off the mountain when I first unfurled the quilt (see pic at top of page)!  We decided it was safer to hold it behind me (ala Superman).

I love this shot!  A happy accident, as it looks like I am trying to line up the top of the quilt with where the hill behind me meets the sky.  Also, the quilt back blends in nicely with the trees in the background.

I'm not trying to pose or anything, just trying to get out of the way to show the quilt.  As you can see, the wind was rough, and I was holding on very tightly to that thing!

Oh, and the name- Most of my quilt projects have their pluses and minuses, but this quilt was only pluses: no machine problems, no major human error, and no regretted fabric choices.  I tried a new pattern and experimented with the "batting", and am happy with the result - Only Pluses :)