WIP: Works in Progress Wednesday

Here is a progress report on Spoolin' Around (what do you think of the name? I'm pretty happy with it, so if you think it's too dorky, um, don't tell me...)

Anyway, use some imagination at this point and envision the white border on all four sides rather than just the top and bottom. I didn't have time last night to sew the last two borders on. Oh, and also ignore those ripples on the top and bottom borders. Not sure what is going on there. I carefully measured the  quilttop and borders. They are both the same width. Anyway, I'll work on that too.

Things changed a lot in the last week. Last Wednesday I was still pretty set on doing a small inner border and then a larger border using the challenge fabric. Then Jessica left a comment with a GREAT suggestion (thanks, Jessie!) and from there I ended up with a 1/2" inner border. And let me just make another observation here. Do you ever buy fabric for no known reason, other than "you'll know it when you need it"? Alexander Henry has a few colors called Heath, a wondeful blender fabric.

The brown colorway was the perfect solution when I was making border decisions. The challenge fabric has a lot of negative white space, and in a few places it would butt up against a tipped-over spool, and I didn't like the white against the white. So I needed something to separate it, and this was perfect. A solid would have been too jarring, but this brown and white "mesh" fabric was a great transition. So I'm saluting the decision to buying fabric just "because." Because at some point it might come in really handy.

Next came a 1 1/2" border of the challenge fabric and then a 4" white border. I had tossed around the thought of appliqueing a needle on the bottom border and big stitching some "thread." Instead, I am going to big stitch a needle, and then the thread will wander around all of the white borders. I'm thinking variegated thread?

My next dilemma is the quilting around the spools. I was thinking of quilting 1/4" inside just the brown spool part with brown perle cotton. Alternatively, stitching around each spool with white perle cotton.

Further decisions, which I won't have to make for at least two weeks: I got this companion print, which I could use for the back, or the binding.

Oh, and I kind of snuck this in on the bottom border. When I cut the selvage off, I had only cut 1 1/2" so it was a little too small to just sew it in to the border. Oh, well...

I'm linking up at Naptime Quilter for Workshop in Progress and Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday. Check out what everyone else is up to.

I just had a random thought. Yesterday I mentioned that Mark's fused glass plate appeared in a quilt magazine put out by Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. Have any of you ever watched The Quilt Show? After Alex did eleven years of Simply Quilts on HGTV, she and Ricky Tims teamed up for a web-based quilt show. I renewed my membership recently, and I received a free gift certificate for a 1/2-year membership. I can give it away to a friend who is not a Star Member of The Quilt Show. And it doesn't even involve your postman trudging through the snow. I just email you the info and you go from there. If you are interested, I can give you the information. It is entirely free to you. So as a giveaway, anyone want to be my friend? Leave a comment to enter. I'll pick a winner on Friday morning and get the info to you.