Getting Some Quilting Finished

This quilt has been sitting, folded up, for two years, waiting to be quilted. I just couldn't find my mo-jo to do it. I'm on it now. It's for my littlest niece who is now 6 - it was intended for her 2nd birthday - oh well. Better late than never. She wanted animals on her quilt, so that's what she got.

I started quilting with some purple/green variegated thread that I bought at one time for this project:

I don't like it. It's too dark. Thankfully, I'd only quilted 2 blocks when I decided it was too dark so I spent an afternoon on the couch, watching a movie, and unpicking the quilting.

I then switched to a light purple which I like much better:

It's subtle and I feel like it complements the quilt, rather than taking it over. And my wobbles don't show as much.

I've been using a combination of quilting stencils and free hand free-motion to quilt this. I tried a design I saw online - I'm pretty sure it was one of Angela Walter's Craftsy classes.

 It's a paisley-like filler and it's in the 3 blocks above. It's hard to see so I got an up close shot - it looks yellow here, but it's not.

From the back:

It's a little easier to see here. I really like how it turned out. It was simple to do and filled the space nicely. I didn't wobble too much, even when my cat tried to jump on top and didn't quite make it.

I hit a bit of a snag in a block that has pinwheels. I don't remember what I did in the centre of these pinwheels but they are really thick and sticking up quite a bit. I needed everything secure but didn't want to quilt through the centre because of the thickness. I used this quilt stencil and it turned out great. The centre still sticks up, but it looks like it's because of the quilting, rather than piecing/pressing.

I want to get this finished as soon as possible so I can get a fresh start on my selfish sewing for 2016. I hope you're getting some quilting time in for yourself these days.

HO HO HO

I just finished this table runner for myself. I think I'm in love.
I like whimsical and this fits the bill. When I saw this in my local LQS I bought it immediately, and I have other fabrics from the line to make myself a quilt of some kind. I have a few ideas but can't seem to commit to a design. Something will come to me I'm sure.

This is the overall shot. The fabric line is called Ho Ho Ho, but I don't remember the designer. This pattern comes from a book that uses this fabric line.

I quilted straight lines in the green borders and around each letter and shape. Then I added some snow flakes - I'm very proud of them. Each snowflake is different.

I used my usual method of tracing a design onto the paper on the table at the doctor's office. Then I quilt it and tear off the paper.

This is a good example of selfish sewing for me. There will be more of this in my future - I'm naming 2016 as my year of selfish sewing - more on that later.