Binding Day Part 1

Over my last afternoon off, I turned a huge piece of fabric into way more bias tape than I needed -- good news, I seem to use brown a lot in quilts, so I'm not worried about the overstock getting used -- and bound two quilts!

The first was of course Xs and Os, which has been holding up all kind of progress around here.

I used the same fabric for the binding and backing, which gives the back a very continuous look. I also like bringing the backing fabric around to the front -- since the backing fabric is in no way represented in the top. It could have felt a little dull compared to the bold prints of the charm squares, but I think it actually works nicely.

I'm still worried the quilting is going to prove too sparse to actually work after washing. The only way to know is to send it through the wash. So, out of nerves that it'll never look this good again, I took photos all over the place. Okay, some of the photo over doing might be because it was already sunset -- at 7 pm? in August? What is happening? I swear August is still summer. Autumn, you need to wait a few more days until September. Seriously. -- and getting proper lighting anywhere was a challenge.

I know the rules of cropping and photography say that I ought to have worked harder to miss all the gardening junk in the background, but something about it made me feel nostalgic for my great-grandmother's gardens, so I wanted to leave in those two wheel barrows. Some day, I hope seeing this picture in my scrap book still makes me nostalgic and brings back all the memories of family gardens that were.

Difficult lighting aside, it was surprising how many things around the farm I could find that kind of color matched with the quilt. This rusty old olive green pick up was a surprising match, though here it doesn't quite look it.

And I now know about what color the barn is.

But in the end, I returned to one of my favorite new places to take photos - and I think I got the winner of the day here.

I hope it looks half this good tomorrow after a run through the washer and dryer. I never thought I would fall for this quilt -- I mean, I picked up the charm packs because I felt kind of bad for them (okay, and I did love four of the prints/cuts). But once I saw these blocks in a test layout, they've really won me over. I know this is another one I made to join the 'waiting for a baby' pile - but this is going to have to go to a very special kid, or I'm afraid it'll become another that never leaves my house -- which would make my husband happy. This has been one of his favorites from the beginning.