Two UFOs Completed

 I will not reach my goal of finishing all of my listed UFOs by the end of May for the guild challenge, but it feels good to be finishing up so many.  I will continue to piece the few that are just kits at the moment,  I will not get them machine quilted unless I get them finished before my Handiquilter get packed for the move because it may be a while before I can get it set up and running again.  Maybe it will be time for me to really practice my free motion on my Bernina???

The first quilt is a product of my FIL and I working together.  He made 3/4 of the squares and left the rest to me.  It hangs down about 6" on sides and foot of a queen sized bed, but I am going to make pillow cases for the head.  The Christmas strings quilt will be used on my bed at Christmas and then flipped over to the snowpeople side for January.  There were two seams that did not get stitched closed and they went undetected as I started quilting and I could not really do a great repair because there was no seam allowance to play with.  Therefore, I decided to add 5 ornaments that are somewhat blended into the quilt.  I figured that we have 5 grandchildren so there is one for each of them.  I am calling this quilt "Christmas Surprise."

  

This quilt is called "Four Seasons.  It was another collaborative effort.  My FIL used his embroidery machine to make the centers for each block.  I am not certain what company created the designs but believe the software designs were package as "Four Seasons." We used EQ6 to create the quilt layout.  The points are not perfect and my SID is more like SSCTDAT (Stitch somewhat close to the ditch at times).  I had not done anything larger than a small lap quilt on my domestic before (and only 3 at that) and will think hard before doing another.  Although the borders seem to hang loosely in the photo, that does not seem to be true when it is laying on the bed.  While I was doing the hand sewing on the binding, I fell asleep several times.  It is definitely a cozy quilt!