I am entering the home stretch.  The Gator quilt is finally ready to quilt.

This quilt is being made without batting; just the quilt top and the fleece backing.  Sandwiching it was not fun and very hard to get flat.  When I am doing this, I generally use my hands and do a lot of flattening and smoothing out.  I do this with spray baste.  However, with the Gator quilt, I was afraid that if I ran my hands of the quilt top too much, my chalked quilt markings would be rubbed out.  So then I tried to do this with the quilt top on the bottom and laid the fleece on top – DISASTER!  Everything was wrinkly.

The problems didn’t end there.  The backing is tight on size.  I only have about 2″ on the top and bottom to spare.  Twice I sandwiched it and couldn’t get the fabric centered and ran out at the ends.  About 1 1/2 hours later (did I say I was doing this in the garage in the heat), I got it together, but it wasn’t perfect.  The top was smooth and flat – the quilt marks stayed perfectly – but this is what the back looked like:

I think the fleece got stretched out at some point.  So what I did was move this wrinkle slowly – remember is was spray basted – and little by little it moved to the edges.  It was kind of like moving an air bubble when you put on a screen protector.  In the end all turned out well.

Today, I finally finished marking the quilting on the entire Gator Quilt.  I ended up using a combination of two marking tools.

• Bohin chalk pencil for the orange and blue sections
• Quilter’s Silver Marking Pencil for the white areas

I marked the quilt before I sandwiched it because I wanted to quilt it in the “Gators”  and “University of Florida” logos.  So I used a light box to help with the marking.

The marking wasn’t difficult, it just took a while.  I have decided that marking the quilting is my LEAST favorite part of the process.  And it was making my neck hurt and gave me headaches looking down and tracing.

But I will soon be at my FAVORITE part – the machine quilting!

Here are some more pics – hopefully you can see the marking.  I am off to go sandwich it.

I have finally started working on the Gator quilt again. I have been really nervous about messing it up in the quilting stage. But now that football season is starting in a matter of weeks I have renewed energy to finish it.

Here is sits on my sewing table turned into a lightbox. I am marking the quilting using a lightbox because the pattern I am using is from computer printouts. Once it is all marked, I will sandwich it.

I found several Gator logos on the internet. I saved the images, converted them to black and white, enlarged them and printed them out. After doing some sample quilting – see below – I decided it would be better if the words were legible on the back of the quilt. I figure you won’t see them too clearly on the front with all the busy fabric. So, I turned the printout over and traced the outline on the back. This is what I am copying onto the front of the quilt.

I will not use batting when I sandwich the quilt. I did two samples, one with and one without; Rick liked the one without better.

Today we talked about basting your quilt and making a quilt sandwich.

Thank you to Patricia for sharing her completed quilt top with us.  This was a block of the month she did.  I love the colors and the variety of basket blocks.  My favorite is the one with appliqued handles.  Beautiful work Patricia.

Here is what I have gotten done on my miniature quilt.  The finished size will be 8×8.  All of this is hand pieced.

Here is my tote bag for the tote bag swap.

The Gator quilt is finally all pieced.

The down-side of paper piecing – look at this mess!

I need your help deciding on the border for this quilt.  Tell me which one you like best.

#1 - Small white border with wide Gator print border

#2 - small blue, small white, wide gator print border

#3 - small orange, small blue, wide Gator print

#4 - small orange, small white, wide Gator print

#5 - Wide Gator print only

Last night I participated in a Friday Night Sew in organized by “Handemade by Heidi”.

I worked on my Gator Quilt in the Garden Maze Paper Piecing pattern.  I finished 2 1/2 strips.  I have 2 1/2 strips left to go on the paper piecing strips.

Thank you Heidi for putting this together.  It really made me get to work, instead of slacking around watching TV.