Friday Finish

Can you believe that May is over?!? 

And can you believe that I finished my May UFO for the Lovely Year of Finishes?!?

Me either!

This quilt was started at the Red Letter Quilt Along almost 2 years ago. The letters were made using Tonya's book called Word Play Quilts (a great reference book that every quilter should have in their library IMHO). The 37 asterisk blocks were inspired by Jean's quilt, and I used a tutorial at the Selvage Blog to learn how to sew them. They were really fun to sew and I think I will probably be making more of them in my quilting future.



It took a while to settle on a machine quilting design to go around all the letters, but I decided on a swirly pattern. 

Then I had some thread snapping issues.
I tried to slow down, but this did not help.  This is the point at which beginning machine quilters struggle, and sometimes give up.  For sure it can be really frustrating, but I always encourage people to just kept trying a different combination of thread and needles.  It is totally dependent on the quilt sandwich, what batting you used, how thick the fabrics are, the combination of the type of thread that is on top and in the bobbin, and how your machine feels on that particular day! For me this week - the quilting needles and the embroidery needles didn't work, but the Topstitch 90/14 needle solved the issue completely.
I was happy to find this fabric in my stash which was perfect for the binding...and I had enough of it to go all the way around! That hardly ever happens...I usually find the perfect fabric, but don't have enough of it :)

The backing of the quilt is a plain white fabric with letters on it.
Click here to see other quilts finished this month.