September WIP roundup (Part 2) and a finish

Life getting in the way of good intentions, as usual. Here are glimpses of a couple of other quilt tops I have managed to get together over the past few weeks - I'm going to be doing lots of quilting soon!

First, a large top made with an old American Jane collection (sorry, can't remember which one) with some pin dots included.  The pattern,which I am calling Four patch Star (for my benefit: it's becoming harder to remember which quilt is which...), is from Carrie Nelson's book Schnibbles Times Two.  As usual I have fiddled with the design and made it bigger so it is rectangular rather than square.

I used fat quarters rather than the layer cakes the pattern is designed for, and I have also skipped the borders, and plan to quilt diagonal lines with the walking foot right to the edge.  The blocks are large, 16" square as each four patch measures 8" x 8".

Backing fabric is this fab red polka dot by Sevenberry - not what I originally intended but it spoke, nay, shouted at me as I rummaged through stash. I took a bit of care lining up the dots when joining the two lengths for the backing: not perfect but not too bad and worth the extra pinning!

I will try and get this one layered as soon as I can clear the dining room table of all my paperwork/start of the year admin. Even though I no longer have kids at school this always seems to me to be the start of the year after the change of pace over the summer; I wake up and try and achieve as much as possible before Christmas appears on the horizon and stuff has to be abandoned till January - my second chance to start the year!

Although they are not together yet I have made the large bonus triangles (cut off when making the flying geese units for the Four patch stars) into pinwheels.  I made a few extra pinwheels with a Charm pack of Bread'N'Butter, a more recent American Jane collection, so now I have 42 seven inch blocks.  I fancy setting them with spotty sashing as per this quilt by Red Pepper Quilts, but I need to go out and find the right spot, as I don't have enough of this Sevenberry spot.

The other quilt top which I am pleased to have got together as it has been lying around for even longer, is this one which I am calling Kaffe Fassett Nine patch on point; again, a descriptive rather than an inspired choice of name!

I have a large amount of KF fabric in my stash, acquired quite a few years ago, but part of me is too scared to use it.  I do like the fabrics still; I just feel I should be a bit cleverer or more arty in order to use them effectively....  I also have several KF books, though not the more recent ones.  Time I pushed myself out of my comfort zone in this regard too.  I don't have a backing fabric for this top yet so it may be a while before I show you more of it, but at least it has progressed to the next level.

Finally to my small finish: I managed the not very great task of layering and quilting the small quilt/table topper I showed you in the last post. And last night I stitched the binding down - I used 2" strips for a skinny doublefold binding as it seemed more in proportion to such a small quilt.  

The quilting is just in the ditch, concentric squares every other row: enough to anchor but not to distract from all the little pieces.  Backing and binding from stash.  Linking to Finish it up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts.  Love the backpack she made.