July–What a month !

It has been such a crazy month, that I feel I have lost touch with Blogland.  However, it is a new month tomorrow, so time to have a change of pace and start over.
Taking into account Vicki’s eventful arrival into the world, my younger daughter having a broken wrist, her hubby working away, 2 young boys to look after and moving house, which  needed lots of Mum assistance, and throw in End of Financial year, there was very little sewing time. 

The weekend gave me some opportunity to work on my FMQ Challenge.  I really enjoyed this month’s tutorial by Angela Walters.  Her tutorial showed us how to quilt tiles.  This design will be very useful for wide borders, or larger areas that need to be filled in with quilting.  I took the opportunity to do different patterns and fills in each of my tiles, just practising, practising. 
Thank you so much Angela for this very helpful tutorial.  I can see myself using this idea in my quilts.  Although in this practice piece my tiles are all straight they dont have to be.  Angles would add another interest.

I was then on a roll with my FMQ, so out came this month’s UFO for the Sew Its Finished Challenge.  In a class on using the Marti Michell mitring ruler, I added the borders to a cot panel I found in my stash.  I sandwiched it, then put it on a shelf where it sat for over a year. .

I quilted the middle section then used one of the design ideas from an earlier FMQ challenge tutorial to quilt the heart vines in the border

  I was so pleased with how that last bit was looking till I saw

in my rush I got the edge of the wadding and backing doubled back and quilted through it. More reverse sewing – and that is not easy with free motion quilting.  Now it is fixed and finished, ready to be put into use.