Triangle Quilt

(fyi -- this post is really picture heavy)

Last week I finished the triangle quilt for the church silent auction. I cranked this baby out in 2 weeks!Here's the finished quilt. It's about 51" x 60", perfect for napping under. :)

Now, a crash course in how I made this quilt:
First, I had to cut out all my triangles. I did this during one of Calvin's gymnastics practices (3 hours of mostly uninterrupted time).

Since I wanted the various FQ (fat quarter) triangles to be randomly placed, I laid the whole thing out. I did this at a different gymnastics practice, since there is a nice big floor to work on. By laying it out, I was able to make sure the various colors were nicely scattered.

Once I liked the layout, I then layered each row from left to right (meaning, I took the left-most triangle and put it on top of the next one, then those two on top of the next one, etc., etc.). I labeled each row.

Sixteen rows ready for pieceing! Connor counted them to make sure I had them all. :)

Time to put the rows together! I put a FQ triangle with a background triangle, in pairs. I chain piece, then at the ironing board I clip them apart, keeping them in order. Then I put pairs together to make bigger pairs, repeat until....

.... I have one long strip. I like to work a quilt from the bottom up, so this is row 16.

Once I finish a row, I add it to the rest of the rows. Here are rows 14-16.

The quilt top is pieced and borders are on. Ready for quilting!

To layer the quilt, I put my backing together (it has one seam), then taped it to the floor (at yet another practice -- love that big floor at the gym), stretching it quite taut. Then the batting (Warm and White) was laid down and smoothed out. Lastly, the quilt top was put on, and the whole thing was safety pinned together.

I quilted a squiggly line down the diagonal sides of the triangles, making a diamond pattern. I stitched in the ditch around the border seam.

The borders got quilted with a meandering stitch.

After the quilting is all done, it's time for the binding. I wanted a 1/2" binding, so I cut my bias strips 3.25" wide (6 x the finished binding width + 1/4"), folded in half, and stitched at a scant 1/2".

Then wrap the binding around to the back and slip stitch into place (handwork that was mostly done at another practice. I get a lot done sitting at the gym).

After a trip through the washer and dryer, the quilt is finished!

(that's my peach tree in the background -- doesn't it look great? There will be a post about it coming soon)

First Day of School

School started on Tuesday. I don't really look forward to new school years. I like my kids hanging around and having lazy mornings. :) But, start it did, and here are the requisite pictures:
Caleb is an eighth grader now, has decided to play football this year (along with soccer), is now much bigger than me, and still gets annoyed that I want to take his photo on the first day of school. I did say I would be happy to walk him to school too but he declined. :)

Calvin is now in fourth grade, and also is now getting tired of the traditional first day of school photo. This year our neighbor up the street is in his class, which is pretty nice.

Connor had his very first first day of school! He is now going to senior kindergarten, in the mornings. What the photo doesn't show is how excited he was to go, and he made a friend the very first day and had a playdate planned with said friend 2 days later! There are only 10 kids in his class, which I think is great.

Now I have the mornings to myself for the first time in a long time. It's kinda weird, but I'll surely find lots to keep me occupied, like the quilt that has to be done next weekend. It's been all cut out and ten of the sixteen rows are already together.