Making Emma's Wall Hanging

Friday turned out to be a very productive day for me, as Sherrie held her annual day of sewing on Veterans' Day. We are not an unpatriotic group, but the sewing  has very little to do with Veterans' Day. She began hosting us on this day because we Frienzies all had the day off, and thus provided a good time for fellowship and sewing. Several do honor Veterans in other ways at other venues; we certainly don't forget to pay tribute to our brave service men and women.

Deciding which project to work on was a bit of a process, because quilters always have several options, don't you know. After a bit of deliberating, I decided to devote the day to working on DD Emma's wall hanging. She asked for this over a year ago, so I have really procrastinated on it. It was forever taking a back seat to other things that came up for my attention.

I have written about this wall hanging in a couple of earlier posts. Click here for when I bought the fabrics (scroll way down) and here for when I made the HSTs. I also described the drawn-out design that Emma tweaked and approved. With all this advance work done, Friday's job was simply to sew the whole business together, which I thought I could accomplish in just the one day.

Let's get to the pictures, shall we?!? (Good grief, I do go on at times.) I will walk though my progess and explain a bit as I go. Below, are the first 5 rows. I was unsure about how to construct the wall hanging, and knew that doing the Eleanor Burns' method of chain piecing would become complicated, so I opted to do just a few rows at a time. That plan worked out pretty well; this section of the top 5 rows was my early-morning focus.

I then moved on to the  middle section, shown above, which was harder to keep straight as this is where so many more triangles came into play. Keeping them going the correct direction (I followed our drawing in the link above) became a real challenge. I think only one HST might be going the wrong way, but do you think I care? Not in the least! *smile*

By late afternoon, I had the lower section of rows together. As I packed up at day's end, only the top 5 rows were actually sewn together. The remaining rows were stitched, but not attached. You can see the gaps in the photo.

Later Friday night, I made myself go back to work on it. My ususal tendency would be to ignore it - procrastination is my M-O. However, I am happy to report that I attached all those rows, added the top and bottom borders, gave it a healthy starch and press, and VOILA! I have the top done!

Emma loves it. We are currently deliberating our quilting option. I like the idea of vertical lines of quilting. What color thread? I am considering black or clear, mono-filament thread. We shall see in due time.

I feel very good about finishing this long-standing WIP (work-in-progress). It was one of 3 main goals I had for this month, so to have it together is a big deal.

Yes, I did sew with friends; I will bring you a few of their projects in an upcoming post. Stay tuned!

I will link up today with Beth at Monday Making; she is desconstructing old work shirts and turning them into quilts - something I am very familiar with!

Happy Quilting, Friends!