A finished braid top!

  Since the last post I finished adding the last 2 braid strips and did a "header and footer" small border. 

I had a lot of small pieces left from all the strips, so I decided to piece them together into 2  long bands.  Once the bands were long enough I trimmed each  to 3" wide.  To each  band I added a 2" strip of black to one side and then sewed the band to the quilt top.  One strip was added to the top--header-- and one strip to the bottom--footer.   

This photo is the bottom corner after the footer was added.

 The final border was a totally different black.  To both sides I added another 2" strip of black.   To the top and bottom I added a 3 1/2" strip of black.   Clear as mud????   I wanted the outer border all the way around to look equal, and because the sides were already banded with black I added a narrower strip. A photo will help......just ignore the fingers in the corners, please. 
  This ended up 60 " wide by 74" long, and goes into the "to be quilted" stack for now.  Maybe by the time I get it quilted I will come up with a name. 
  You would think that after this quilt top, the scrap boxes of strips would be fewer....Na-da, didn't happen.  I can't tell that I de-stashed at all!  If anything....they multiplied and had baby scraps.   So I am going to have to try something even easier and quicker to use some of them up.
I think I saw an idea for a quick strippy quilt at Quiltville.com.  I need to pay Bonnie a visit. 

  I picked up some vinyl portfolios with extra pages inside to use to organize all my tear-outs from magazines that I have accumulated.  Some pages are patterns, or layouts, or techniques I might use later on.  I need to get them into some semblance of order, so I can find them when I need them.   I used one several years ago for inspiration photos for watercolors,  I just need to do it for everything else. 
Happy stitching,