Finished: Begonia

Begonia is finished!  I know this isn't a great picture, but it's the best one I have that shows the whole quilt.

I got the pattern from the Seattle MQG and I loved it.  This is absolutely a pattern I'd make again, and I don't say that very often.  I really like how it turned out and I enjoyed the medallion style of the quilt.  If I had to do it again though I might choose a white background; the light grey didn't quite do it for me.  The Kona colors I used include: quicksilver, splash, nautical, marine, pacific, Malibu, Paris blue, horizon, spa blue, blue, and breeze.

I am going to admit, I made a ton of mistakes with this quilt.  (Through absolutely no fault of the instructions.)  It's been a while so I've forgotten several, but the big ones include realizing I put one of the outer rows on backwards after I had it loaded on the quilter and had just started quilting.  I didn't require a lot of unpicking, but it did take several hours to get back to the same spot.  Then I had started with some cool quilting in the top corners, but by the time I got to the bottom corners I had forgotten and just did some pebbles.  So that was another unload, unpick, and reload.  I wouldn't call myself a perfectionist at all, but these were big enough errors that I wouldn't have been happy with the result if I had left them.

For the quilting, I did a variety of motifs.  In the center I did some straight lines that formed a star.  in the oddly shaped grey sections I added pebbles.  I created some squares and rectangles in the larger grey spaces.  And I skipped all the colored pieces, so they could pop a bit more.

So, while it took much longer than I was hoping, I'm really proud of the end result.

Finished: library quilt

 The library quilt is finished!  

I know what you're saying; that doesn't look like it has anything to do with a library!  It's true.  One of the librarians at our local library just had a baby, and I gave it to her.  I was almost on track to finish by the time she was born, but then she came a little early and so I let myself have a little extra time to finish.

The pattern is derived from photos at TheQuiltYarn, although the colors are quite a bit different!  I had gotten the center flowers and the teal at a local quilt shop and I really do love them.  As always, it is backed with minky.  I bound it with a ribbon this time and I did not like the ribbon quality.  I've done it a few other times with ribbons and it's been fine, but this time it was not as good.

For the quilting: I matched the thread color to the fabric color.  It helps hide imperfections, and there are a lot in this quilt!  The green stripes have a back and forth, the blue stripes have an echo, and the squares have arcs in them.  I really thought I had found the arc motif in a book, but I can't find it right now. 

Metro Lattice

I finished Metro Lattice!  It was made with the quick curve ruler.  I didn't have perfect piecing, but it still went together so quickly.  I wasn't really trying to get this one done until June, but before I knew it I had a top.

I love it.  It is probably one of my favorites.  And there was a big snowfall, so everything was looking so pretty outside.

I bound it in coordinating colors.  I think it brings the quilt together so nicely.

I did pebbles and arcs in the pinwheels, back and forths in the middle parts, and echoes in the white sashing.  I realized there was a long arm ruler after I had quilted all of it...it probably would have been easier to use than my cardboard templates.  But the templates worked fine, especially since everything didn't line up perfectly.  I did a lot of ruler work on this quilt and feel like I'm finally starting to get the rhythm down a bit more.

This is also the first quilt that I put an official tag on!  I always tell people how to wash the quilts, but I'm not sure that it sticks.  So I have a tag with my name and the washing instructions.

Finally, I made my first pillow with the scraps using this tutorial.

It was a gift for a friend's daughter.  While most of the fabrics are unique to hers, there are some orange fireflies that are also on her brother's quilt.  I'll admit, I probably wouldn't have done that except that the orange was just perfect.  (Of  course, I don't have a close up of the fireflies.)  I've been told that her brother's quilt has suddenly become more popular now that they both have one.

Linking up with Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Finish it up Friday, TGIFF, Fabric Frenzy Friday, Fabric Tuesday, Sew cute Tuesday, and Linky Tuesday.

Finished Tetris!

My quilt played video games all day.

So I kicked it outside to play.  Of course, it brought out a video game book to read.

But the quilt got bored reading it and so begrudinly let me do a photo shoot with it.

Front:

Front close up.  I did a double echo around all the pieces and FMQ squares and rectangles on the black part outside border.  I left the grey box and small border pieces unquilted.

Back.  I really like how the quilting came through.  I was a little worried that it would be a poor match for the back or wouldn't be square.  But it matched well and is square.  I worked really hard to get everything lined up, so I feel pretty proud of myself for that.  (The yellow pieces don't look great because of the wind.  It is an "organic" echo, but looks better than the picture portrays.)

(Here's a closeup of the back.)

Then the quilt wanted to go back inside, but I said it needed to spend a little more time outside.  It tried to climb a tree, but it turns out that quilts aren't very good at climbing.

It wanted to go swimming, but I said no because it didn't have a swimsuit.  It turned its back on me.

I finally relented and let it go back inside, where the first thing it did was go back to the video games.

Thanks to Melissa at Happy Quilting for hosting this QAL!  It was my first one and I loved it.

Linking up with Freemotion By The River, Quilt Story, Whoop-whoop Friday, TGIFF, Sew & Tell, LAFF, Plum and June, and Sew Modern Monday