Under the Wire

Whew! I'm sneaking a post in here today, the 31st of July in the evening. I just finished my Spokes wall hanging under the wire. The deadline to meet and post my OMG (One Monthly Goal) is in a couple hours, LOL. But it's complete, including the hanging sleeve. 

Usually I prefer to show some in-process photos, but I just decided on Saturday that I was going to make a mad dash to the finish line, and I didn't take too many pictures.  

This is how the wall hanging started the month - with the black and white background finished, as well as the bicycle, basket and the base area of the flowers all fused on.  My goal was to completely finish this wallhanging by month-end.

Last Saturday I began cutting out flowers, leaves and flower centers out of the array of fabrics that I'd set aside. Several were cut from the final mix. I played with them on the design board and got an arrangement I liked and wanted to keep. Mistake. The design wall is vertical, and the flower and leaf pieces still had their backing attached. So, I took it down, removed the papers, and began again to arrange it on my sewing tables. When I once again got an arrangement I liked, I fused it down with the iron.  Here it is back up on the design board at that point.

Here's a close-up of the flowers and basket. The basket, again, is woven strips that was completed last month.

And here is a close-up of the spokes area. I really love how this area came together!

And then I basted the quilt on Sunday or Monday, can't actually remember. Next the quilting began. It is very narrow, almost matchstick-type quilting. Each row is approximately a half inch apart. They are not precise, although I did mark the center points on all four sides and started there. But the lines themselves are rather organic. The quilting took a long time - a couple several-hour sessions. Once the straight lines were done, I did some micro-stippling in the flowers and leaves to make sure to sew all the pieces down securely. Although I don't anticipate having to wash this wall-hanging, I don't want floppy flowers!

The binding and hanging sleeve came next, and it was done! I worked on it most of today (Wednesday) and it's done!

Spokes measures 32.5" x 37". It is perfectly square although I didn't press it well enough to hang perfectly straight. I'm glad I cut the background a couple inches wider on each side, because that gave me room to trim and square it up after quilting it to death!!

I'm so pleased to have this project done and hanging up. In JULY!!  Linking up to the OMG finished goal link-up at Patty's blog, Elm Street Quilts. I so appreciate her efforts in running this program to help us make and meet monthly goals!

Spokes was also Goal #5 on my 3rd Quarter Finish-Along list. I will link up there at the end of the quarter, but my goal list is HERE.