A double dose of positivity

 Hi everyone! Can you feel the summer winding down? I can, and I want to hang on to it with both hands so it won't go away. Unfortunately, it's so humid that it's far too slippery to hang on to, plus I have a hard time breathing the soup that is our air right now. True fact: it has been so rainy and soupy that this week there was a full-grown frog on our deck. Or maybe it was a toad. I'm no scientist, but it was weird. He just hung out there, then literally hopped away, over the side of the deck, which is elevated. Perhaps he needed a break from the rigors of being a frog and just decided to hang out away from the fam for a little bit?

I have not been hanging out this week, on the deck or otherwise. We've started having meetings again (have we learned nothing?) and gearing up for the year, but I did sneak in a few minutes to finish up these cuties:

 

These are the two Positivity quilts I've made for Preeti's Positivity Quilt Along. Okay, I know it's really only one and a half because the one on the right is not quilted yet, but I can totally explain! And I really think I should get some points for finishing at least one of the quilts on time, which is something that normally is pretty rare around here. I get bored pretty easily, and life often interrupts, and UFOs abound.

 

Let's talk about the quilt top first! I actually really like this one, though it went through several changes before it got to this stage. My first idea didn't work, so I changed my mind, eliminated the alternate blocks I had planned, and added sashing and cornerstones. I wanted something that would be gender-neutral and for someone who liked the outdoors, and I think it works. And I like the secondary pattern with the flipped corners and the cornerstones. If you're looking carefully, you can see that I ran out of the main batik, but I had something else and I think it works just fine.

 

The picture up top doesn't give a good view of the fabrics, which have been in the stash for a long time. The blocks are mostly batiks, and the prints are a very old collection called Woodroses in Winter by Holly Taylor. And here's why it isn't quilted yet: I was planning to quilt it on my machine, but then I took that lesson on the longarm, and I completely changed my mind about using my machine. Why wrestle with a quilt this size if I could longarm it instead? So that's the plan for this top. It will get to Bernie a bit later, but I'm pretty sure they'll still be able to use it. The top doesn't have a name but I've been thinking of it as the very imaginative "neutral" quilt, and I'm looking forward to quilting it.

 

Turning to the blue quilt, this is the finished Whisper quilt, and I like how it turned out. Once a top is quilted, it really changes, doesn't it? I am so much more pleased with this than I was with the top. Now it looks cozy and comfortable, not bland.

 

I used a walking foot to quilt diagonal lines across the quilt, and I backed it with a soft blue. I'm happy to say that there are no tucks in the backing, and the quilt washed up really well and is now on its way to Bernie. I was worried that the binding was too dark a blue, but now I think it makes a nice frame. 

So that's my contribution to the Positivity Quilt Along! I'm happy to donate both of these to Mercyful Quilts, and I hope they bring some families some comfort in a hard time. We've been in that situation a few times, and quilty hug definitely helps.

Hope you all are having good luck finishing up your quilts! Have a lovely weekend, and I sincerely hope there are no frogs staring at you through your sliding glass doors, plotting how to get inside away from the heat!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Brag About Your Beauties, Finished or Not Friday, and Preeti's Positivity linkup.