BTCT Borders

I kept my hands busy this summer stitching on the 4 borders for Beyond the Cherry Trees. 

With no quilting deadlines looming, I just stitched away enjoying every moment.

First thing was to tape all the pattern pieces together. 

There are 9 pages for each of the 4 borders. 

I had cut the border strips way back at the beginning to

make sure I had enough fabric for all 4 of them. 

Next was to cut enough bias strips for the wavy vines. 

Then run them all through the bias maker. 

I had decided to make them 1/2 inch wide. 

I sort of over estimated how much I would need and made almost double. 

I could use the leftovers to do a single bias binding. 

While all the pattern pieces were on the 8 foot table,

I positioned then glue basted the stems. 

Good thing that each of the borders has a different curve. 

I used Roxanne's basting glue. 

Then Devan helped lay out the "pepperonis" to see how they would look.

I left extra fabric and the selvage on this bottom border 

so I would have something to pin to the quilting boards. 

The cherries are several sizes.

I am still not decided if I will just freehand them or use the Perfect Circles. 

It was so fun to stitch up the vines. No turning under the edges or removing pins. 

Just stitch until I needed to re-thread the needle. 

Next was to pin the leaves in position. 

I did this for all 4 borders.

I had cut out 2 sizes of leaves with the GO Baby

and the custom leaf dies I had made up just for such a project. 

I set a pace of 4 leaves per day to get them all done by the end of Aug. 

I left some extra bias vine at each of the ends 

so I will have something to join onto the other borders at the corners.   

I wanted to see how many more circles I still needed to cut out

so I put the borders up on the big design wall.

 First one

Then two.

 Then three. 

That is when I realized that I had put the bottom row on backwards. 

I will see how it all looks when they are all complete. 

It's a case of connecting the corners to eachother.

Devan put all the pepperonis on the borders on the wall. 

The boys had way too much fun taking the cherries off the wall 

then putting them back up again. 

It was fun hearing their conversation. 

I commented to 5 year old Jonathan that he was tall enough to reach

higher than his 6 year old cousin did when she put them up. 

So, little 3 year old David smiles and says, "I'm short enough to reach the floor."

I cut 70 more circles using the GO Baby of a lighter French General red. Then I took everything off the wall. It was time for the little girls to work on their I-Spy quilts.

Blessings, 

Chris

Linking with:
slow-sunday-stitching.

quilting is more fun than housework.
off-wall.
moving-it-forward.
design-wall-monday.
my quilt infatuation.
peacock party
finished or not finished friday.
from bolt to beauty.