batching

do you know what this means? basting party!

while i was at it with basting "bathsheba," my single girl quilt. i pulled out the other tops ready to go and had a basting party.

"grellow garden geese" was next in line. i'm excited to get this one done and in use this season.

i didn't fuss too much about the backing on this one, but i'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. i stayed truer to the name and original vision for the quilt on the back - there's more grellow and less other colors here. there was inexplicably a large piece of the perfect grellow colored solid in my stash, which i used for the bulk of the back. i added a strip of pieced leftovers and a strip of a very old grellow-colored kate spain dandelion print, circa 2012, to the top. but that wasn't quite enough, so i added this mushroom-colored "henna garden" to the bottom, and that completed the top.

moving on to "sunny crossroads" and i'm actually going to miss seeing how this one nests together so nicely on the back. because i made opposite paired blocks from each fabric pairing, there were an even number of low-volume and yellow blocks, which alternated throughout the top. i always pressed to the yellow prints, which made nesting these seams a cinch. and it looks nice, too!

i'm so very pleased with this backing. i had a false start a few weeks ago when deciding on a backing, then landed on the perfect selections, which got put together during this party. i was able to include the selvages from the two prints in the backing. i'm also happy to say i have plenty of that sunny "katie jump rope" print left for something else.

i put this photo in my instagram stories with the two designers tagged on the photo. denyse schmidt comment on it and reposted it to her stories! big fan girl moment for me. denyse is the sweetest. i met her at quiltcon in the spring and have interacted with her several times since online. she's as lovely as her fabrics.

i cut it close on this one - the backing was barely wide enough for the "groovy liberty" top. and i didn't do a good job cutting the batting, either. fortunately, it spread spread a little when i smoothed it out after spraying the backing.

i wore my basting socks so my feet didn't get all gunky and dirty. once i basted a couple of quilts barefoot just before i had to go to pilates class. i found out just before leaving for class just how dirty my feet were and they wouldn't wash clean. at my studio, pilates is done with your feet in toeless socks or barefoot, with your feet on the equipment a lot of the time. my feet were so stubbornly sticky and dirty that time that i had to cancel the class last minute. my teacher said it was the most unique reason for cancellation she'd every heard. so now i always wear my basting socks to keep my feet clean.

my basting station - the central hallway in my house. that tile is ugly and has been ever since we moved in here 22 years ago.(maybe you can see my wood samples because we're finally going to change it out?) but it's a good place to baste quilts.

 and some of these to keep me going. it's a party, right?

next up will be the quilting party and then the binding party.

so much quilty partying going on here.

i do enjoy batching my quilts this way.