Finishing Projects

Bell Pull rolled for Storage, originally uploaded by ivoryblushroses.

While I love working on projects, sometimes it seems like I get them 98% finished and then they languish in a box or drawer, never quite fully completed, far too much of the time. At the beginning of the year, I made a list and even posted about several projects that I hoped to complete this year. Despite looking over the list regularly, I haven't made much headway as I'm continually distracted by the prospect of working on a newer project that is more enticing.

When my daughter was here, we went through all my unfinished projects and put them together in one spot. I was stunned at how many there were! And of all the lovely crazy quilting projects, the only ones I had completed for myself were a couple of pincushions. So, now that I'm home again, I've resolved to put more effort into getting some of these languishing projects completed. Yesterday I finished the Christmas Bell Pull composed of round robin blocks.


It turned out lovely! I'll love putting this out at Christmas!


To finish this piece, I used a strip of iron-on interfacing on the back of the row of stitched blocks that extended the width of the border. The backing fabric was then turned over the front and stitched down. The top block is by Rose Anne (Canada) and the second down is a joint block in which everyone in the round robin worked a little bit.


After the edges were stitched by machine, I went back and added a featherstitch border by hand. The same thread was used to add stitching where the blocks were joined to one another. These blocks were completed by Rita (Kansas) and Karrin (California).


At the top and bottom, I left the border extra large to accommodate a rod pocket. I did have to shorten my rods by about 1/2". On the back is a label showing who stitched which blocks. These blocks are by Margreet (The Netherlands) and me.

I have another set of round robin blocks that I need to complete to make a summer bell pull. Now that the first one is done, the second should be easy to complete!

I'm continuing to work on my green bag as well. This morning I was looking at Gerry's blog and saw that she is doing a give-away to celebrate her 700th post. In addition to a fabulous pincushion, she is giving away 3 of her delightful bluebird buttons that she has hand-painted! I think one of them would be a perfect addition to my green bag, don't you?