Done!

I finished the top today and had enough squares left to make a matching pillowcase. As you can see Sam takes his role as head of the quality control department very seriously. Of the 6 or so pictures I took he managed to be in all of them. Guess that means it passed inspection. :-) I plan to take it to work next week so I can get it basted. I think I'm going to use it to practise my free motion quilting as I'd like to meander the center, then maybe do some kind of viney thing in the narrow blue border and stitch in the ditch around the squares in the last border. It just so happens I have a piece of orange I bought to back another quilt then forgot I had it so I bought another backing for that one. I would have probably prefered a blue backing but I have this and it will work so I'm going to use it. The binding will be the same blue as the narrow border.

This will be used on my couch. I live in a very blue world. I don't mean depressed blue but blue EVERYWHERE in my house. It's my husbands favorite color and I like it too so it's at least something we can agree on. But blue couch, blue chair, blue curtains (all thru the house!) on top of gray carpet means sometimes it can just get to be too much and I'd like something to liven it up some. That's why I really liked the sample of this kit that the quilt shop had made up. The center fabric is a lovely orange (which I love!) with bits of blue and gray that I thought would be pretty with my navy sofa and gray carpet. And the squares in the border pick up more of the blue.

Remember this fabric? Back in December Finn asked us to post our favorite Christmas fabric and this Twelve Days of Cat Christmas was mine. I bought it a few years ago and haven't been able to find a use for it since I didn't want to cut it up. While I was making the quilt above it hit me that pattern would be perfect for this fabric. I can use a nice red for the narrow inner border and then go thru my Christmas fabrics and see what I have that will co-ordinate with it for the squares. I really thought I'd never find a use for this fabric other than to take it out to pet it occasionally so I'm really happy to find a way to showcase the lovely fabric without cutting it into little pieces that would lose the design. I'll probalby start previewing fabric for that this weekend. But first I need to make a few Red/white blocks to send to Clare for her leukemia project. And while I have the reds out I need to cut some charms to send to Paula for a project she's working on. I swear, Ladies, I haven't forgotten you! This weekend I promise.