Almost Done

I finished hand quilting the center panel of the Firebird baby quilt.

 What's really amazing is that I've worked on it every single evening for several hours (except on American Idol nights, and the couple of evenings that I had previous engagements) for well over a month, and I'm not sick of it. That is not to say that I'm sorry to be finished with the main quilting, but I have not grown to hate every single inch of this cloth, which is how I usually feel at the finishing line of a Major Project.

 I am going to work one random/squiggly quilting line along the center of the pieced fabric borders, sewing sort of on and around the paisley outlines. I wouldn't have to quilt that section at all, the batting is a solid piece of bonded cotton so it's not going anywhere, but I thought it might look odd to have that great swath unquilted fabric when the rest of the piece is stitched heavily. I'm not going to use the hoop for those areas, I'm just going to work running stitches, so it should go pretty quickly. After that, I just have to sew the binding (machine sewing it to the quilt, and then hand tacking it down).

 I love this design, and the quilting has been fun. If you've a mind to give this one a shot, you can order it from Spoonflower here. It's an original Cean Irminger design.

I don't know if I'm ready to start another quilted project right away (I have some class samples to knit up), but just in case, I ordered a yard of this for another baby quilt center panel. And a yard of this coordinating fabric for the border strips. Fun, no?

In the meantime, I only have a couple more feet to weave on the scarf/runner project. I'm slowly getting the hang of this! And the correct size heddle arrived, so next up will be a scarf or runner with heavier yarn. Woohoo!.