A Finished UFO

Way back in 2009 (okay, so maybe not "way" back, but long enough ago) I finished making this quilt top and had it quilted by a long arm quilter near me in 2010.  Well since then, I've had the binding made, but I just never got around to attaching it to the quilt. Well, I'm happy to say that this quilt is officially completed after a little motivation by the BMQG WIP challenge.

I took a few pictures this weekend at my parent's house of the quilt.  It's not quite King size, but it's slightly bigger than a queen size quilt.

I'm glad to have this one finished.  It had been sitting in a pile in my quilting room for too long.  Now, it's found a nice new home at my parent's house since it's more their color pallet than mine.

Dazzling Diamonds Finished

Last weekend I finished quilting and binding my Dazzling Diamonds quilt for the Boston Modern Quilt Guild's mini quilt challenge at the Lowell Quilt Festival.  You can read all about how I designed this quilt here.

I'm REALLY pleased with how it came out.  This might be my best machine quilting work thus far. It's also, easily, one of my favorite quilts, although I feel like that's claiming you have a favorite child. 

See what I mean?  It's far from show-quality machine quilting, but I still think it's awesome. 

Before I got to work on machine quilting this, I used a printed version of the quilt and tested some designs for each different section.  I tried a bunch of combinations and settled on what you see above and below as my first choice.  I also had a second choice for each section.  Why?  Because I needed to see if I could actually quilt what I wanted to.  Sure I've done straight lines before, and pebbles.  But I needed to make sure I could quilt the pebbles on such a small square.  It was also my first time doing the figure-eight quilting motif.  By planning, I was able to relieve some of the stress that I associate with free motion quilting.  I was able to practice the quilting on some scrap fabric and batting before jumping to the quilt.

I really love how the back of the quilt came out.  I love when you can tell what the quilt pattern is by looking at the quilting from the back.  As usual, I used just one fabric on the back as opposed to a pieced back.  While I love the look of some pieced backs to quilts, I have always preferred to use a single fabric for the back.  In this case, I think it really shows off the quilting.

I will say that over the past year, my confidence in my machine quilting skills has grown exponentially.  Practicing really does help, and I've been practicing for quite some time now.  One of the things I love about quilting is the ability to try something new and move out of my comfort zone.  Last year I really spent some time learning needle turn applique.  This year I've really honed my machine quilting skills.

The fabrics are all Kona solids and the thread is all So Fine! by Superior Threads. I love the way So Fine! thread blends with the fabric but you can still see the quilting details.  It's one of my favorites. 

Twister Quilt Finished!

This weekend I finished putting the binding on my twister quilt.

I love the way it came out.  I used two It's a Hoot charm packs for the twister portion.  I then used coordinating fabric for the binding and backing.  The white around the outside of the quilt is a Kona white.

I quilted this little quilt on either side of the horizontal and vertical seams.  I was trying to think of some way to play off the twisting pinwheels, and realized that with this type of quilting, the quilting would go through the long point of every pinwheel.

 I love this mini quilt.  I think it would be a perfect baby quilt.  I know so many people having babies this year, so who knows, it could wind up being for one of them.

I can see myself making more of these twister quilts in the future.  They come together so quickly and look great.

Eva Package Quilt Finished

Last week I picked up my Eva Package Quilt that I had 4/5 of the way machine quilted.  I decided that it was high time I finished quilting it and marked complete.

I finally finished the quilting one evening last week and prepped the binding the following night.  I wrapped it around an empty spool of thread that I had just emptied while finishing the quilting to bring with me to retreat. 

While at retreat, I machine stitched the binding to the top and after dinner and a couple of margaritas the first night, I decided it would probably be best if I didn't try to stitch a straight line or use my rotary cutter.  I ended up hand sewing about 3 feet of binding that night while chatting with everyone.  The rest of the binding was finished last night.

I brought the quilt to the park this morning on my way to work and took a few pictures of the finished quilt.  I love how it came out and can't believe I waited this long to finish it.

 

I love the way the early morning sunrise hits the quilt in this photo and just makes the quilt glow. 

Here's the back.  Normally I like my backs to be all one fabric, but I wanted to use what fabric I had on hand, so I added the pink stripe to the purple for this back.  I love simple backings.  I added a label on the bottom right corner. 

Here's a closeup of the back and binding.  My quilting is FAR from perfect, but that doesn't keep me from enjoying the quilt. I got the inspiration for this quilting design from Judi at Green Fairy Quilts here.

And here's the front with the binding.

YAY!