Hanging Basket Quilt - Still on a Roll

I am over the  moon and inside out!  Two, count 'em, TWO finished quilts in one week!  That is definitely some kind of record for me!

This is my Hanging Basket Quilt.  I had wanted to hang this quilt from the side of our barn to get a great photo in natural light, but it is raining cats and dogs here and I couldn't wait to post my photos. Maybe when the sun comes out.... in June... it's Oregon...

I blogged about this quilt way back in September of 2011.  Scroll down. The blocks measure 10 inches and they were made using the paperless paper piecing method.  I dearly love making blocks this way. Paperless paper piecing allows for exacting precision and blocks just seem to go together better when they are paper pieced.  For the first time ever, I had someone else do the quilting.  It was done on a long-arm machine, aptly named "Gertrude", by Jeanne E., the custom quilter at my local quilt shop, "The Country Lady". http://www.countryladyquiltshop.com/   Jeanne did a stunning job and photos here do not do justice to her quilting prowess.  It was a big decision to hand off my work to someone else to do the quilting, but I felt that I just did not have it in me to hand quilt this thing.

So when Jeanne called to tell me that the quilting was completed, 

I was at The Country Lady in a flash to pick up my quilt.  

I spent all day today working on the piped binding.  See it pictured above, along with a peek at Jeanne's  beautiful free-motion feather quilting from the back side.

Each block is a bit different from the next.  I keep looking at the quilt, saying to myself, "that's my favorite block", then I look at another and pronounce it to be my favorite block.  I could go on and on.  I love them all.  Can't wait to do more of this small and precise paperless paper piecing

I promise to post that future photo taken with our old barn as a backdrop, just as soon as the weather cooperates.

Hung on the side of the barn.

Finally!  With the help of Mr. T., I managed to get this quilt photographed, a task that is not quite as easy as one would expect.  I put a long bamboo pole into the sleeve, then we both climbed big ladders to lay the pole on two very large nails hammered into the barn siding.   It's a big quilt, 94 x 94 inches, so I had  move WAY back and stand on a ladder to snap my photos.  I had thought that I would want to take these quilt photos in the sunshine, but soon found out that the quilt was completely washed out in bright light, so down it came.  We put it up again early the next morning while there was still a bit of cloud cover.  Much better results and a lesson was learned.

I have photographed a few quilts hung on that same bamboo pole, laid on those big nails on the side of our big ol' barn, but this is the very first quilt that has hung PERFECTLY square!  I'm pretty excited about that!