B's to the 5th Power

 When I worked at the local quilt shop

customers would come in and

ask for many things all

beginning with the letter "B".

It actually confused some quilters

with so many B words.

Were they looking for 

Borders?

 Backing? 

Batting?

Basting?

Binding?

Over the past couple of weeks,

 I've been working on

" B's to the 5th power!"

But let's back up just a bit.

Over the past year, like many others,

I studied fabrics

from Barbara Brackman's
Quilt Along,

"Stars in a Time Warp".

I completed 72 sawtooth star blocks

and decided to set them in a 

medallion style.

 I chose a center block from

Di Ford's Antique Wedding Sampler.

I hand pieced the block and

then added Broderie Perse applique

to the corners and

then a narrow border print to frame 

the block.

Instead of needle turning the appliques

I fused the pieces and cut them out exactly and

finished the edges with a buttonhole stitch.

I found it pretty challenging keeping the stitches an 

even depth and an even width apart.

I wasn't sure how close to make the stitches because

I didn't want it to look like a satin stitch.

So I did my own thing.

***

Then came the B-words, Borders.
 

This is a French General border print

and I only had 2 yards.  The mitered

corners came out perfectly, but I didn't

have enough to really fiddle with 

the corner design.

All four corners are the same,

but don't quite have the "

Wow" factor.

 While I was looking

in my resource piles, I discovered

a great piece for the Backing.

It's rather plain,

but it's a great piece of reproduction fabric

that's almost vintage a second time around.

Does anyone remember that line?

Add a leftover piece of the border print

and now it's the perfect size.

Next comes Batting.

I was feeling so proud of my make-do attitude.

I fused 5 narrow strips of batting together

using a light weight fusible interfacing.

that I cut 2 inches wide. 

Five pieces out of the closet and 

now a piece ready for Basting. 
 

 I'm planning on machine quilting this
myself, so it might take a while to get done.

But in the mean time I 
worked on the last B-word,
Binding.
 
It's ready whenever I am.

Just wanted to send a big thank you

to Barbara Brackman for

sharing her wealth of knowledge

with so many. 

Just realized I could say B's to the 7th power...

Blocks,

Broderie Perse

Sorry, I can get carried away!

Check out my recent post
"Let's Hear It For The Stash"
to see is quilt finished.

Until Next Time-