A couple of finishes

Orca Bay is DONE!  That's right, completely finished.  Pieced, quilted, bound and ready to use.  And only 6 months after the mystery was over.  I tried taking some pictures outside to get truer colours for this, but I might have to try again.  I really like the way this quilt turned out, although there were times when I wondered if I'd finish it.  Thank goodness for the Patchwork Times retreat in February, where the top was finished.  If not for that, I'd still have a bunch of pieces sitting around my sewing room.

The backing is pieced.  The leftover strips from the border were used here, along with some large sections.  I pieced on the outside of the purple section, because I love that fabric so much I didn't want to lose 4-8" in the quilting process (the excess backing needed and then cutoff later).  It's purple and black, and I thought the perfect colours to back this quilt.

This is the quilt that pushed me over the edge.  My Handi-Quilter Avanté should be here in about 4 weeks!

In other news, my June colour challenge is pieced.  I finished the table runner and placemats.  Two are shown here, but there are actually 4 mats.  This project did NOT go as planned.  I avoided it for weeks, and I now know why.  I should have sat down and done the calculations in detail, on paper, instead of relying on a rough sketch/calculation.

The placemats were supposed to have the french braid running vertically down the left side.  But the length of the piece was 6" too long when it was done. I have no idea how I got the calcuations that far wrong (and note that this was a second attempt, after completely blowing the center square size the first time).  You would think I'd have learned, but apparently not.  However, despite being different than planned, I do like the end result.  I bought fabric for binding today (I might have had enough, if I hadn't needed to recut all the placemats) and I hope to finish quilting this before the end of the month.

My favourite bit of the placemats is the the yellow piping around the center square.  That's a new technique for me, but it seemed like a good way to get a highlight of yellow in a very small piece, without driving myself crazy trying to stitch that accurately.  In the runner, the yellow is 1/2" and is pieced into the pattern.