Kaleidoscope Quilt - Finished!

Hi there!

Had a great time with my family up in Iowa over the weekend. I buckled down and finished up my kaleidoscope QAL top by Saturday evening, just in time to sing happy bday to my gram and enjoy some yummy homemade cake and ice cream.

vintage sheets never looked so good :P

Quilted it the next day on the fancy long-arm machine I so amazingly have access to. Still pinching myself! It has this laser thingy which can be used to trace a pattern on paper while simultaneously stitching on the quilt. Neat, eh?

laser pointer on paper quilting template

Here's a closer look at the quilting. I went with thread that has a 70's retro yellow/gold look about it. I briefly considered hand tying it with yarn like they used to do back in the day but I'm glad I chose to quilt it. I think it might hold together longer this way.

Once it was quilted I couldn't resist the urge to photograph it outside amongst the foliage :D

washed out by late afternoon sun

I used a vintage blue/green floral sheet for the backing, with an added navy stripe since it wasn't quite long enough.

a shot of the back with sun shining through

My quilty mentor (the one who owns the long-arm) told me to bring it back with me over Thanksgiving and she'd help me through the binding process. I've only finished two baby size quilts before this one and simply folded over an inch or so of backing and stitched it down.



~70ish x 90ish inches



I started this QAL knowing I wanted to make it big enough to wrap myself up in on the couch. The thought of having it so close to completion but folded up in a plastic bag until Thanksgiving was just unbearable! I couldn't resist doing a speed demon, hack-job version of my "easy" binding method, using a long stitch length so I can easily rip it out whenever I get around to doing the real deal. I can't tell you how satisfying it was to snuggle up in this thing with my little Lucy dog last night. Sigh. I'm a quilter, and it feels so good.

I'm linking up with Lee's Work-in-Progress Wednesday as well as Megan's Sew Modern Monday! Click on over and check them out, you know you want to :P