Been Busy

Hello, everyone!
     I had a gift card and decided to buy some backing for my Grand Illusion quilt top.  Needless to say I had a bunch of options in my stash but they'd all have to be pieced so I decided if I was going to piece I might have well have it all match. I was desperate to do anything to calm this quilt down.  So here's what I decided on,

Ordered online as there was zero locally. It's from a collection called The Painted Garden by Dena Fishbein.  I seem to like her designs as I kept choosing her fabric wherever I surfed.  I'm pleased with it, and the price of $5.99/yard was another selling point.  The colors are perfect, at least to me, now to get it sewn together.  I'm still undecided as to whether I want to wrestle with this on my DSM or not.  I washed/dried it even though the top fabrics were not pre-washed.  I like to do that with the backing because of the large size and shrinkage with one piece versus small two-inch pieces.

I joined the Block Lotto site the end of last year and have been having fun participating in that.

I was one of the winners last month for a collection of Double 9-Patch blocks.  More on those when I receive them in the mail.

The maximum number of blocks to make varies each month.  The block for February is an arrow block.  I made them over the weekend.  I'd love a whole quilt  with them!

I was going to stop at two but kept going for a full set,

 Thanks for stopping by, what have you been busy with?

Can We Talk?

Does anyone else have this problem other than me?  I've never seen a reference to it elsewhere.  You're looking at the back of a quilt I had quilted by a well-known long arm quilter. From the first picture you can see what at first glance looks like a smudge or stain.  On closer examination, it's clearly a bunch of thread trapped between the backing and the batting!  The first time this happened I was in a panic until I realized what it was.  The problem is not always easily solved.  In this case I threaded a large needle hoping the know would 'catch' on the offending thread clump.  It did and I managed to slowly get the green thread out without leaving any damage to the quilt.
Another time I had a long length of red thread that I never got out.  I just ended up moving it under a seam using a bamboo skewer!  I've had this happen to me there times, all with three different long arm quilters!  Am I just unlucky, or is this a common problem that no one notices or talks about???  I'd love to know!

Thanks for stopping by, I'd love it if you left a comment!