Leaving Hogwarts

I found the leftover scroll print from the back I put on my Flower Garden quilt and thought it would make perfect sashing for my Harry Potter blocks. I had enough to do the inner sashes...


But then I decided I really wanted the outer sashing or frame to be slightly wider. There wasn't quite enough of that lovely scroll to pull it off. Rats! I couldn't find anything in my stash that I felt would make an appropriate substitute either. After a fruitless trip to the store where I'd purchased the scroll print I remembered that I'd used a long strip of the backing to make a sleeve for the Flower Garden quilt when I was asked to exhibit it earlier this year.

There was just enough in that sleeve to allow me to make the wider frame around the blocks - woohoo! I wanted to put cornerstones in that frame and it's a good thing because otherwise I wouldn't have had enough of the scroll print. I wanted the cornerstones so I could include a couple more owls and two train patches for the Hogwarts Express. (I would have done more with the train if I'd had a more appropriate train print.)

I've known what I wanted to use for the final border almost since the beginning of this process. But before I put that on I felt it needed a transition fabric. This lovely red was ideal.

That inner frame (the scroll print) is 3" finished, and the red is 2" finished. I cut the outer border strips to finish at 4" but they looked too small. Fortunately I auditioned them before I actually sewed them on! And, fortunately, I had plenty of the border print. I cut the strips to finish at six inches and put them on. Ta daa:

I'm very happy with the way this turned out. In fact, I am so happy with it that I don't want to quilt it myself. First of all, I can't figure out how to do it in a way that would please my aesthetic sensibilities with the skills I currently possess. It could be tied but I don't want that for this quilt. My regular long-arm quilter is not in a position to help out this time around.

There's a sub-group in our local quilt guild that meets every other week to work on quilts for children in our Foster Care program. I called one of the members this morning to see about donating this top for them to quilt and then pass on to Foster Care. I haven't done one for them yet this year and it does seem kind of silly to always be donating out of state. So the top and a back and some binding will probably be delivered to them next Tuesday. The best part is that I found out that the donated quilts get hung in the Foster Care offices. When a child comes into the system they see the quilts and can pick one out for themselves. In my mind there's no better way to gift a quilt to a child than to let them pick the one they want on their own.