Returned Around the World

On Saturday at the Boston Modern Quilt Guild meeting, we returned our Around the World quilts to their owners.

Here's my quilt that was returned to me.  I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially seeing as though I had no idea what to do with the block that I had initially created.  It was just sitting around for over two years, waiting for me to do something with it.

I have to say, I really enjoyed this bee.  It's certainly something that I'd do again.

Here are the rounds that I contributed to over the past few months:

Back in Business - Final Around the World Border

Well, I'm back.  I spent all of last week in Las Vegas for work, and man was I exhausted when I returned.  My company (high tech industry) hosted its annual user conference with more than 15,000 attendees.  As some of you may know, I work in public relations at the company, and as part of the event, we hosted 130 journalists from around the world.  We announced 42 new products last week alone.  Talk about a crazy week.

I finally spent some time when I got back finishing the border of the last around the world quilt. 

I added the flying geese to the corners of the border.  I really like how it came out here.  This quilt will go back to my aunt KK the next time I see her. 

And yes, those geese are paper pieced.  I couldn't get away with not doing some form of paper piecing on one of these quilts.  I had been wanting to do flying geese on one of these as well and was happy when this one seemed to call for it. 

I can't wait to see mine. 

I can now return to my regularly scheduled sewing (well, for the next week - before my in-laws grace us with their presence for 17 days.  No complaint, I love my in-laws, I just love sewing too). 

Around the World - Trip #2

This month is the second round in our Around the World swap.  I received the quilt plus one border from Samantha who added a cute scrappy border with an appliqued tree and two love birds onto the center block of Stephanie's quilt.  This is what I came up with.

The second border that was added is adorable, but I thought it was very busy, so I wanted to simplify the second border.  I wanted to play off the petals in the center block and incorporate the fun colors that were also added.  I tried several different looks with the petals, but settled on this one.

The petals are fused onto the quilt and then I machine appliqued the petals down. 

I really like how this came out and I hope that Stephanie does as well.

Around The World

Although I've been traveling a bit lately, this post is about quilting.  The BMQG is doing an around the world swap right now.  We start with a center block and pass the piece around, adding a 4-6" border each round.

Here's the block that I started with. 

Here's what I came up with.  I first through about going with a flying geese border but I wanted to stick with the straight lines of the first block. 

The border I added is 4.5" wide on each side.  There's a white 1" strip in the inside and what will finish as a 1" strip on the outside of the solid stripes.