Soooo close to the finish line!

Today's post is much later than usual, but for a very good reason. I had to meet my lovely husband at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport at 11 this morning to bring him home after his 11 day visit to Maine. He was supposed to come home tomorrow but with the huge storm predicted for the East Coast he decided to change flights and come home today. We had a couple of inches of snow overnight but not enough to keep me from driving to the airport to get him. I think he's happy to be back home--although he says it was the best father-daughter-granddaughter visit he's ever had. And I'm glad to have him home too.

I have projects for him to do. I want him to put up the quilt rack in my sewing room so I can hang up Among the Pines.  Oh, didn't I mention it?  Yes, the quilting was finished on it yesterday and today I made the hanging sleeve and stitched it on, and I also machine stitched the binding, leaving only the hand stitching of the sleeve, the binding and the label left to do.  And, as luck would have it, tonight is the meeting of the guild's hand stitching group so I have the perfect project to take with me.

So, I guess you might like to see the (nearly) finished quilt?  Here you go.  (Drum roll in the background)

This is it--quilted but not bound. The binding is the same fabric as the background in the pine tree border.  I wish I could get a good photo of the embroidery and the quilting, but with just my camera, I'm not having very good luck.  All I did for quilting was stitch in the ditch on all the seams of the framing around the embroidered blocks and around each of the pine trees.  I also stitched an outline of the pine tree in each corner--I didn't like to leave those cornerstones so plain. 

And here's the embroidered label I made for the quilt. Tiny, tiny stitching in the lettering, resulting in a wonky like of text. I don't care--I'm a little wonky myself so it reflects my personality.  😊

I tried a different technique to make this label.  After I'd stitched on the border fabrics. I cut a piece of batiste fabric that I had leftover from something and laid the two pieces on top of each other, right sides together. I cut a lengthwise slit in the center of batiste before I stitched all four sides. That way I could turn the label around to the right sides.  I poked out the corners, gave it a quick pressing, and Voila!  A label was born!I can stitch this onto the back of the quilt anywhere I please since all the raw edges are enclosed instead of making sure 2 raw edges got tucked under the binding and the other 2 sides got turned under and stitched down.  I think this will be a bit easier to stitch on.

When I showed Don the quilt, his comment was that it was me--it reflects my values.  I've loved the Northwoods ever since my first family vacation to Lake Superior's North Shore when I was about 10 or 11, continuing through my college summers at a wilderness camp on Lake of the Woods, MN, 12 years living in Duluth, MN where the wilderness mingles in harmony with the neighborhoods, kayaking trips in the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior, and multiple--but never enough--canoeing and camping trips in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Northern MN. I love the wilderness and when I saw this design by Beth Ritter of Wellington House Designs, I knew I had to make it. Little did I know how teensy weensy some of the stitching would be. But I really like the (almost) finished quilt, and I think it will bring me great pleasure every time I see it hanging in my room.

Wow!  I just checked the time and it's getting late!  I always get a little confused when we change the clocks forward and backwards.   I'd better wrap this up and get ready for the hand stitching group.  Til tomorrow.