First Finish for Ages!

Okay, I feel like I'm slowly getting my life back after a really draining couple of months there!

Yesterday I finished my Pole Dancing quilt which I made as part of the Something New Sampler hosted by Amy at 13 Spools. 

As it was quite a modern quilt I decided I would give it to my niece Vanessa who is currently living in the UK.  As my brother was flying over from Australia to spend Christmas with her (both of them are doing a wilderness trip to Finland for Christmas - how cool is that!?) I had to get it finished so he could take it with him! Nothing like a firm deadline to get you moving again!

I had such a struggle to get a decent photo, we had the windiest day here in Adelaide and that quilt just wanted to take off!

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, although I realised part way through I had been going to leave a plain box around each sampler block so they would stand out but forgot to - oh well!  I used it as an opportunity to try out my free motion quilting and used a few favourites in the background. This is the first time I have totally free motion quilted a quilt, even all the straight (or not so straight sometimes) lines. Usually I would use my walking foot but not this time!

I dithered about what to do on the reverse applique circles and in the end I just did some freehand looping circles.  Hope they stop the edges from fraying too much!

Stitching around all the cathedral windows was frustrating, I had issues with thread breaking (as its much thicker than the rest of the quilt) then me being a dodo and stopping, lifting the presser foot to adjust things and then forgetting to put it back down again (time after time, I don't know where my brain was and there was a fair amount of heated muttering going on!).

The interlocking squares around this block were a new design for me and I quite like the look.  The trapunto block I had to go back and do a bit more on as I wasn't happy with it as while I was quilting I could decide for sure what to do with it.  When I was sitting burying all the threads at the end I had a lightbulb moment and then had to set up the machine for quilting again!

I wasn't really happy with these wavy lines on this block but time was short and I couldn't unpick and re-do them. Would have liked to though!

Of course the most important thing - a label for posterity.  I called it Vanessa's challenge too as lets just say Vanessa has issues with spilling things! That and I wondered if she had ever tried pole dancing - I'll let you know!

Oh and I nearly forgot, I included her name on the front too! Its in the stippling on the right there! My cursive writing was a bit rusty I have to say! 

Well that's that one done and dusted. Onto the next one!

Thanks for visiting!