Friends - a quilt - Ta Da!

In the nick of time, I have finished this quilt - which I have named Friends. My friends in the Modern Stitching Bee made most of the blocks for this quilt and I made the rest. When I was picking a block for my turn in the bee, I saw this photo by Bananaphone Robin on Flickr. She kindly gave  her permission to use her idea when I asked her. You will see that, in the end, I did not follow her idea properly for the edges but I decided not to change them once I noticed.



I have loads of photos for you of this quilt. My friends carefully cut cute fabrics and low volume prints that read as lines to make my idea work. I actually picked this block before the economy/thrift blocks became so popular.



I quilted this quilt a lot on my long arm machine. The quilting was all hand guided free motion. I have a ruler and used it sort of free style to stitch in the ditch. Clearly I need a lot more practice with both the fmq and the ruler work, but still I love how this turned out.



I put some of my favourite fabrics on the back.



Here are some detail shots after washing.



If you look carefully you will see my concentric circles in the larger white areas are pretty squarish. My brain is much happier to make squares than swirls.



Around some of the blocks I quilted swirls.



Around other blocks I quilted wavy lines and teardrop shapes. The washing softened it all up without obliterating the quilting, which makes me very happy.



Here are a few before washing shots so you can compare.



Aren't the fussy cuts from my bee mates great.



There is the whole quilt before the wash.



I put this photo on instagram and flickr to get some help picking the binding fabric. You can read all the comments on instagram by clicking here and just click the photo to go to flickr. Another reason I named this quilt Friends is because of all the help from my internet friends in making these choices. In the end I went with the Jungle Ave. dot print on the left for the binding and I made no effort to match the dots exactly - I prefer the modern industrial look.



Friends is 60" x 72" after washing. She pulled in 5" in each direction from the wash, probably due to all that quilting. This quilt is for me, I am hoping she will work well for nice summer naps.

 

Friends was my May goal in A Year Of Lovely Finishes, and I have managed to get her linked up with just seconds to spare.


This quilt was also one of my Q2 FAL goals too, and so now I have 3 finishes off my very long list.
 Best,

Leanne