Quilt #2

 My second quilt is finished!  I purchased the fabric before Chelsea was born and began working on it in October of last year.  I had hoped to have it done by last Christmas but knew that having a 2 month old at that point would probably hinder my sewing time. Ha!  Did it ever!  But no pressure.  Instead of being 6 months late, I'm going to say it's 6 months early for THIS Christmas.  Convenient, huh?  I created a Christmas quilt because I wanted to start the tradition of bringing it out every year right after Thanksgiving.  It'll reside in our living room during the month of December for evening snuggles.  Then, during the week of Christmas, everyone gets a turn having the Christmas quilt on their bed with Lee and I getting in on Christmas Eve.  Then the Christmas quilt will go back into hiding until the next year.  I have a feeling I'll be the only one excited about the Christmas quilt but that's okay.  

The quilt was intended to be lap size and measures upon completion 53 x 44.  Those are kinda odd measurements but I didn't work from a pattern and I wasn't comfortable going any bigger since this was only my 2nd quilt.  I used a layer cake of Kate Spain's Joy fabric line for Moda.  The back is also from the Joy line.  The binding is Flutter by Amanda Herring for Riley Blake.  When you see a larger panel of it, it resembles an old-fashioned glass ornament shape (at least in my head it does).  The front border is Kona Snow. 

I followed a tutorial for a double slice layer cake quilt and used that as the focal point of the quilt front.  It was SO easy to put those blocks together.  I actually finished those last November.  Then I couldn't decide if I wanted to add borders or not.  I like the look of the white against the colorful blocks so it worked out okay.  I had a lousy time making the quilt "sandwich" on this one.  I'm still a quilting newbie and probably should have spent more time making sure my bottom layer was free of creases and wrinkles.  When I went to do my straight line quilting, some parts of my back bunched a little.  It was frustrating.  I fixed some areas of it but left others because, uh, it adds character???  Lesson learned.  I may stick with baby quilts and table runners for a while before trying a larger quilt again.  Or I may have somebody else do the quilting for me on a larger quilt.  I enjoyed doing the binding this time and 3 out 4 corners are mitered correctly so I'm getting better!

Now I'm working on a wall hanging for Chelsea's room and I have a whole bunch of new fabric to play with.  Gotta get started!  It's great when you find your sewing mojo :)