It's a Finish!

 Ta-da! Primrose Path is a finished top! Black was the only color that made sense for the outside border, so easy-peasy. The original inspiration was a tapestry or rug {not sure} in black and white. Just couldn't quite bring myself to make a pure black and white quilt. Much too modern for me!

Primrose Path is a completed quilt top now

Thankfully I had enough of a solid to cut out what was needed for borders. Just enough actually. Really surprising as I tend to use it up in bindings and I had already used quite a bit in the sashing borders of this top. Would have loved to use a black fabric with some sort of floral print, but then that would have made things over-the-top busy. Probably. We'll never know now!

A little bit funky, a little bit charming

I love quilts with blocks set in two different directions and this fit the bill nicely. It's not immediately obvious, but I find it kind of sweet and charming.

Probably too graphic to have the cozy vibe I like

This quilt is dark, quirky and not nearly as prim as I normally prefer things to look. Still, it's got a lot of character and will hopefully, fingers crossed, look amazing with hand quilting some day in the future! The size of this quilt is 78" x 82 1/2", so a bit bigger than a large throw quilt. Love having it at finished quilt top stage after years of wondering if I wanted to make this, how to do it? In what colors, yada, yada yada. So it's not my favorite quilt in the whole wide world. That happens sometimes. I'm definitely pleased with how it looks though and happy for the experience!

Lotsa pink in this quilt....

I also finished up the hand quilting on Practice, the improv. strips quilt that I'm gifting to a nephew for his wedding. Big sigh!  I was sweating it a little with all the other things that needed attention this week.

Improv. Practice is finished up!

This quilt was started with the practice strips from the winter quilting meeting two winters ago. I had gathered up a stack of old, less than admirable fabrics for all the gals to practice free cutting on. It seemed easier to let them 'practice' before asking them to cut into their good fabric. My thought was that I wouldn't care how this stack of fabric ended up and it might be interesting to play with strips cut in widths intuitive to other people.

It's been a great practice quilt 

Later on, I used these strips to make my own quilt top, only needing to add in another couple fat quarters of color, plus the cream of course. The cohesion of the cream fabric really helps pull the whole look of the quilt together in my opinion. Good call there as the other fabrics ended up being fairly blendy looking without the offset of the much lighter color.

So glad to see the hand stitching texture come alive

Once again, I was reminded at how much better some fabrics can look when they are cut into smaller pieces. Funny how it can make an 'ugly' fabric look so, so much better!

Very snuggly looking quilt!

Mostly though, I was just done with these particular colors and style of fabric prints. Obviously, I have been spending a lot more time with brighter colors in the past couple years and have gotten away from the overwhelming earth tone phase. That being said, this was a good trip down memory lane, while also allowing me to freely play with improv. strip layout. Absolutely no pressure with this project!

Loving this backing

When I went looking for a suitable quilt top for my very masculine, duck hunting nephew, this quilt top jumped out as the best possible choice. Feeling sorry for his wife to be, I went ahead and added this Kaffe floral to the back. Well, this fabric and about five others. ha! Anyway, it's DONE! Yay me! and now I can start finishing up the two baby quilts and maybe even start on another....