[gray geese] over the rainbow

Yay!  The baby quilt is done!

It's a big one, about 41" x 63" -- bigger than I planned, because I added the white sashing to my original design plan.  But I hope it proves to be useful, whether as a playmat or an eventual toddler bed quilt.

Details that may be of interest to someone, somewhere:

-all the fabrics are from my stash

-the gray is a solid from Connecting Threads; the white sashing is (I believe) a Bella solid

-the binding is the gray version of Alexander Henry "Heath"

-the backing fabric (light blue with little fall leaves) is a Connecting Threads print that was on clearance a little while back.  It washed up very soft.

I used several of my new Aurifil variegated 50 wt threads to FMQ some loose spirals on the rows of geese (plus one of my standby cotton threads from Connecting Threads: the violet used on the final row of geese, pictured above).  It was fun to sample these threads -- they are absolutely lovely to work with, no breakage, and the stitching pretty subtle.

Is there a step in the process that you hurry through?

Lately I have been finding myself rushing to the finish line, and not taking quite as much care with my quilting as I could.  So I am making a little pact with myself: in my next few projects I want to break out of my quilting comfort zone a bit, moving beyond stippling, spirals, and straight line quilting.  I think I have enough control over my FMQ to do more than this.  I just need to take some time with the quilting itself.

Anyway, given that this baby is due ANY SECOND NOW I am glad to have this present done and ready to go.  Thanks again to my online friends who were so encouraging when I was fretting over this project!  It makes such a difference to hear feedback and advice from such a friendly and talented lot.