Katie's Modern Nest: Quilting it up

For Christmas, just a month after I caught the quilting bug, my husband gave me some fabric and said "make something." Well, I had been stalking Crazy Mom Quilts Blog and LOVE so many of her amazing quilts. It was so hard deciding which to try. In the end, I couldn't help but brazenly copy her whirlygiggle quilt.

I don't know about you, but when I start making a quilt, I often have noidea where it is going to end up. Let me take you through one of the many decisions I agonized over with this one. I loved the colors in the blocks, but couldn't help wondering...was it too plain?

First Idea: just join the blocks. Its clean and simple and lets the fabric colors really play with each other.

Second Idea: Use sashing...maybe orange? This would give a direction to the quilt, but I'm not sure I like where it is going.

Third Idea: Use sashing...maybe brown? Better, I am not loving it as much as the contrast of the fabrics against the white background. Simple option #1 it is.

Now that I have sewn the front together it is time for my favorite part...what should I do with the back? As I mentioned in an earlier post, piecing the back is so freeing and fun. Who cares if you do something you don't like...its the back! So don't agonize over it, just try something new and it is guaranteed to be more interesting than just a single fabric on the whole back.

Here were my options for the back (if you look close you can see my ancient 1971 PAFF machine in there ;-) Though the orange didn't make it on the front, I figured the back was the perfect place for my orange print.

Back Option 1: Asymmetrical with leftover blocks

Back Option 2: Stripy blocks

Back Option 3: Square Inset Panel (this is what half of it would look like)

I have to admit, this choice won out because I had never done an inset panel before. It was really fun to sew. It may be hard to see in this photo, but the multi-fabric border is sewn from wonky blocks that are smaller versions of the wonky pinwheels on the front. I'm really happy with the way this turned out. You'll see the final pictures when I have finished the quilt.

That brings me to today, and today I am doing the machine quilting. I decided to quilt diagonal lines spaced randomly across the top. Here's the quilting in progress, stay tuned for the final pictures once it is all complete.