Quilting Advancements

I am so excited about this quilt!  First of all, it was really fun to play with another one of Bonnie and Camille's fabric lines, Happy-Go-Lucky.  Such a precious bunch of fabrics.  I love everything they create!

It was also a lot of fun to make all these half square triangle and then come up with a design.  I really love how it turned out.

Once I got the quilt top finished, it was screaming, "Quilt me differently!"  Every time I looked at it, I kept feeling like it needed something different than one of my usual all over quilting designs.  It seemed like it might be a good time to try something new, especially since I have a block of the month quilt which will definitely need some special quilting!

I have had this book for a while and have used it to try some designs every once in a while.  It is a great book!

 

Then I bought the Kindle version of the following book after thumbing through it at a bookstore and liking what I saw!

Both books were super helpful in helping me think about the design for this quit and then put it into action.  It felt weird to quilt it all at a much slower speed.  I was able to adjust my speed higher after a bit, but never wanted to go too fast and lose control.

In hindsight, I wish I had flipped the designs on the patterned fabric to the white areas and vice versa.

Quilting this was such a huge learning experience for me and did a lot to build my confidence in working with other free hand designs.  What fun!

So here is the finished quilt before washing.  Yes, I am washing it as usual.  To me a quilt that is going to be used isn't a quilt until it is washed and dried and soft and snuggly!  I am interested to see how it looks post wash and dry.

 Here are a couple of up close front photos.  In the center white square is a fun flower.  Love this part!  In each of the patterned triangles I quilted a loopy flower looking fan thing (technical name, yes).  In white areas I did double circles.

Honestly, my favorite part of the quilt is the back!  I love how well it shows off the quilting design.  Stunning.  Makes me want to do a solid color quilt just to play with quilting motifs!

I am so excited about doing this and learning all I did!  Can't wait to get it out of the dryer!

Thanks for bearing with all my quilty gushing!