Done, and done!

The auction quilt is officially done and turned over to the school. It's still on display in the lobby, along with the other auction projects. I had to take it back to do some final beading because there were two buildings with no beading whatsoever. Also, I needed to put a little dab of glue on each beading knot. This actually took more time than expected. The glue is to make sure the knots don't unravel over time. The beading thread is at once slippery and sticky. It's very fibrous, and feels kind of like dental floss. But at the same time, it's sticky. If my thread knotted unexpectedly while I was drawing it through the quilt, I often couldn't get the knot undone. This was especially true when I didn't have a certain color thread and therefore used a Sharpie to make white thread the desired color. I have many of the cool colors of thread — blue, teals, a couple of shades of purple — but I didn't have orange or red.

This is one of the blocks I beaded last. It's turned sideways here. It's technically beaded fringe, but it stands up off of the quilt. Only the ends of the fringe pieces are sewn down. I can't decide if it looks good or it looks like the building is being attacked by some sort of plant-like aliens. Eh, what's done is done!

Here is the back. Everyone always comments on the back, and since it's often the first thing they see, especially if I'm pulling the quilt out of a bag, they think that's it! Don't tell anyone, but the fabric is 90 degrees off. You can tell if you look at the flowers and their stems. I did a double hanging sleeve because the quilt is wider than one length of fabric and I was feeling stingy. Plus, that's one more place to anchor it on. The label has a map of the quilt which is numbered along with a key telling people which child did which building. There's also an explanation of the ingredients and techniques. And how to care for it. I always feel a little self conscious putting labels on quilts, but not in this case. I also put a copyright on there for my design. I hope that wasn't too obnoxious.

For those who are on facebook, I'll post a bunch of photos, including closeups of most of the buildings. And now I get to take it off of my UFO list!