Children's Garden - Hooray for a Finish!

I'm so pleased to have finished this quilt in time to send it home with my son-in-law after Memorial Day weekend.  Hooray for a finish!  I practically quilted my fingers to the bone to get it done in time.  (Not really, but I did have to work longer and faster.)  No more stressful deadlines for me.  It takes some of the joy out of quilting.

I've decided no quilt will be perfect until I perfect my quilting skills -- which means I may never make a perfect quilt.  That's okay.  I think of each quilt as a snapshot of my ability at the time I made it.  I can only be as good as I am and improve as I work on each successive quilt. 

Details, etc.

• 47" x 59" after quilting
• 45 1/2" x 56 3/8" after washing and machine drying
• Warm and Natural batting
• Binding was cut at 2", folded in half, stitched to the front, hand stitched to the back

Lessons

• Always remember to cut out the back of the applique pieces before layering and quilting.  Too many layers are too hard to quilt through.
• When appliqueing, stitch the top-most layer on first, then cut out the fabric behind the applique.  Do each successive layer the same way.  (To avoid the problem of too many layers.)
• Warm and Natural Batting is hard to hand quilt.
• Using masking tape to quilt straight lines is pretty easy.
• Imposing a too early deadline on myself (i.e., not giving myself enough time) makes the quilting less fun.
• A vertical design board and a camera might help the planning process.
• Hand quilting on the diagonal is not as easy as hand quilting with the grain.

After Thoughts

• Maybe there is something I could have done to integrate the flower blocks more.  Vines or ...?
• The fabric I used for the inner border may have been a better choice for the outer border and binding, too.
• I love Churn Dash blocks.  It's a simple pattern that looks different depending on the placement of colors and light/dark fabrics.

Blocks and Back

Simple block, maybe a little Mary Engelbriet-ish.

I used masking tape for the lines on this block.  Maybe I should

have gone all the way to the edges with the quilting lines.

That blot (above) is water.  It was rainy when I photographed.

An easy way to make a star is to make five
curves around the inside of a circle.

The leaves are weird in this block.  I like the
quilting lines, though.  Again, I used masking tape as a guide.

Another leaf might have improved this block.

I am linking this post to
A Lovely Year of Finishes at Fiber of All Sorts
Thank Goodness It's Finished (TGIF) Friday at Charm About You
Find a Friend Friday at Sew Many Ways
Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts 
Second Quarter Finish-A-Long at She Can Quilt.  My original post declaring my intention to finish this quilt this quarter can be found here.

--Nancy.
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