My 100th Post!!

Somehow the month of November passed me by, and I didn't even realize it. It probably had something to do with work and then traveling to Sacramento for a week to visit the in-laws.  Thus this is my long-delayed 100th post!

I can hardly believe it.  I've been able to stick with this blog for four years now!  Reviewing my old posts, I can see how my interests have morphed over the years.  What does remain constant is the borderline obsessive-compulsive personality behind these interests!

OK, now on to sewing.  I finally finished quilting and binding this quilt top, which I just gifted to by youngest.  He is turning five on Monday, yippee!

I went a little overboard on the pics, but I just loved putting this quilt together so much.  I wanted to be able to document all the things I liked about it.  I originally posted about the details here.  The pattern for this quilt is called "Jitterbug," from Layer Cake, Jelly Roll & Charm Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott.  The fabric is Punctuation by American Jane, and the background is my favorite Kona in snow.  

"Simple" was the guiding theme when I first considered the quilting.  I started by outlining each of the quilt blocks.  Mr. Elvy then suggested I do a diagonal grid through the center squares, which turned out awesome.  

Then I couldn't resist doing a little FMQ.  I tried not to be too ambitious, as I was with this quilt.  I wanted to complete the quilting as quickly as I could, so I could move on to other projects.  I stitched little boxes around each patterned rectangle along the border, and then did the wavy line on the white background border areas by tracing lines drawn about one-half inch apart.  I think it turned out quite well.

I completed the binding by machine stitching both the front and the back of the binding with a walking foot.  I love this method of attaching the binding -- it is so much faster than hand-stitching.

Here are a few more gratuitous pictures.  This is how the binding looks like from the front.  Once the quilt is laundered, the stitch-in-the ditch seam in the front all but disappears.

The backing is also from American Jane, although I can't think of the name of the line off the top of my head.  It included a bunch of chickens.

Finally, here's a full picture of the quilt.  It's big enough to fit a twin-sized bed, and I was able to make up No. 2's bed this morning with it.