Old Tobacco Road - Clue 5 - Bonnie Hunter - Mystery Quilt

7/2/16  I am working on the center medallion block for my upcoming mystery and making these flying geese as leader/enders as I go.  I need almost a hundred of them for Old Tobacco Road.

7/18/16  I finished both Chasing the Sun tops today and while at it, added to my stack of flying geese leader/enders.

7/19/16 - 20 more geese while working on a back for Chasing the Sun


8/4 -  I had to clean the studio today and came across all of these geese that have been made and need to be dogeared.  Well, naturally that is part of cleaning up, right?  Am I finished making them, oh heck no.

8/6  It happened!!!!  I finished the dang flying geese for the borders on this quilt.  Oh goodness.  This has certainly been an ongoing project.  Now for those dog ears.

12/5 -- I have moved this top to the very tip top of the UFO list.  It WILL be finished this week.  While working the first half of the top, I have leader/enders going to make the cornerstones and flying geese borders.  I get all four finished - yes, I'm cheating and working on clue 5 while finishing clue 4.  Oh well.

12/6  While setting the second half of the top today, I put together the flying geese borders as leader/enders (well also just worked on the borders once the top was finished) and cut the inner border

12/7  When I left off yesterday, I was ready to move onto borders.  Today is the day.  Starting off with the black inner border I made yesterday, I measure, cut and sew, all four sides.  This is how much border I have left.  Yep - virtually nothing.

So - sewing this border on is crazy challenging.  You see, after trimming yesterday --- all that BIAS is everywhere.  The amount of easing required is crazy and I am definitely putting my feed dogs to work today.  AND talking nicely to them so that they do their job well.  They go on smooth but there are still some waves.  Hopefully the next border will solve those.

Okay, now all I have to do is attach the cornerstones to the geese strips and away I go.  Whoa - wait a minute.  For some absolutely crazy reason, my sides (yes ALL FOUR) require one less goose than the pattern calls for.  I have no idea what I did wrong and I don't want to look too long for it either.  I'm just gonna go with it.  Oh yay -- waves are pretty much defeated.  Fingers crossed it stays that way.

When I took out the project box for this, it contained the black inner border fabric but that's it.  Now those who know me well will back me up on this:  This is not like me at all.  I pull the entire quilt at once.  Borders, binding, backing, etc.  It ALL goes into the box.  I have no idea what happened here, but I guess it's out to the studio I go for some shopping.  I find a couple large pieces of yardage that might work for the backing as well as outer border and binding fabric.  Success.

First things first.  I get the outer border cut but since I don't have as much fabric of it as required for a 5" border, mine is going to be smaller.  I really like this gold and want to use it in this top. I'm okay with a slightly smaller border - it will still give the eye a place to rest and the dark brown binding will encase it nicely.  I cut the binding too while I am at it and then sit down and sew all the strips of each together.  Why settle in twice?  It'll have to be done sooner or later anyway.

When they come off the machine, I just go ahead and finish up the binding before moving onto the outer borders.  It's just a matter of ironing at this point anyway.

Okay, it's time.  FOUR MORE SEAMS.  That's it for the top.  It's kind of hard to see the last border against my hardwood floor, but it's there.  Once again, I cut it close and only have about 8" of border leftover.  Wow.

Well that's it for Clue 5.  I am working in the backing and will post updates when I finish it as well as when the quilting and binding are complete.  Until then -- this post is OUT of the draft stage.