Crazy Garden Quilt Assembly In Progress

I know so many of my readers have been eagerly awaiting the completion of my Crazy Garden Quilt.  I started the process!  First, I had to trim off the excess fabric:



Some may think I waste a lot of fabric.  Well, I do but I have my reasons.  First, I like to stitch in a hoop so I make sure that my ground fabric will fit in a 12 inch Quilting hoop.  I use a vintage one.  I feel it's more sturdy and better made than the new ones.

If you look close in the first photo, you should be able to see that I mark my sewing line and add a 1 inch border around that.  I do this for several reasons.  I have a tendency to push the envelope when it comes to beading!  I mark that line and then run a basting stitch so I know how far I can put beads.  I leave the extra inch around that for "squaring up" the block.  With the stitching, the beading and the weight of it all, CQ blocks can get "out of shape".

So, the first thing I do is remove the basting stitch and then trim the block 1 inch from the sewing line.

Next, I square it up leaving a 1/2 inch seam allowance.  Again, the 1/2 seam allowance helps to support the extra weight of a CQ:



Once I had the blocks all trimmed up, I laid them out on the floor to be sure I was happy with my arrangement:



Next, I started sewing!  I first sewed them into vertical strips:



Generally, crazy quilts do not have a batting layer inside.  Again, my crazy quilts weigh a ton so I need the batting layer to help support them.  To this, I sewed vertical strips together horizontally but directly onto the quilt batting:



In the next photo, you can see where the quilt is sewn onto the batting.  Once I had that done, I top stitched along the outside edge to keep everything in place.



I can't go any further on the machine now until I hand-sew the trim on the seams.  I'll do that while watching TV.  You can see the pink satin fabric that I chose to border the quilt with.  It's such a pretty shade of cottage pink!  Anyway, the excess quilt batting is there for when I get to the borders.  Once I have the borders on, I can trim the excess batting away.


And all the while, I had my little supervisor overseeing my work:



That would be my Simba!

Anyway, once I get the trim sewn on the seams, I'll post another photo.  In the meantime, mom and I have completed a few more projects so I thought I'd share them:

First, is mom's little Swan Trinket Box:



Seems like I have a lot of bird items today!  This is my "trash to treasure" Dove In A Basket:



The basket was a broken vintage candle holder.  Now, it's a dove in a basket of flowers!

Last but not least, I just had to do another Birdbath:



I just love doing these!  A vintage candy dish turned birdbath!

I'm also thrilled beyond words that one of my Etsy items was featured on Paper*Cakes Finds.



How exciting huh?  Thank you so much!!!  Do visit the Paper*Cakes Blog.  Lots of pretty handmade eye candy there!

Ok, in other news, I'm tweeting now!  Ha, ha, ha!  Makes me laugh!!!  If you tweet, please look me up!  I could use some more followers.

I guess that's my news for today.  I just pulled some Banana Chocolate Chip bread out of the oven.  Oh, does that smell good.  Now to put some salad together for dinner!