Old quilt, new quilt

The Firebird quilt is a baby quilt, meant to be used, not just looked at, which means it'll get dirty, which is exactly how it should be. I machine washed and dried the fabrics before quilting, and then I machine washed and dried the finished quilt.

The difference is amazing. It didn't shrink more, it just... fluffed... and puffed... the details really pop now, and the whole quilt has such depth. I love this. Now, it is truly ready to go to my friend, where it'll be an At Gramma's House Blanket.

 And by great coincidence, the fabric for the Next Quilt arrived the very morning after I finished Firebird. This is another Spoonflower original fabric (not my design). It's a complete mood shift from Firebird, but the moment I saw it, I fell in love. These goofy robots captivated me.

 And the coordinating fabric (one of several from the same designer), is perfect!

 I think I'll go with a solid color binding- probably bright orange, or bright green.

And of course, I started quilting right away. The designer helpfully drew little quilting lines everywhere, so I know right where to sew... This quilt is going to be such fun to work on!

For the Straight-Line Impaired

I highly recommend free-hand quilted squiggles.

 I mean, look at this: no eyeballing straight lines 1/4" from anything (a skill I simply do not possess). Just lots and lots of quilting along printed outlines, and then wandering wherever I please. More than one person has commented that the quilting around the stars looks like constellations. I love that notion. The only thing I'm sorry about is that my friend Ann V didn't mention that such a thing as glow-in-the-dark thread existed until I after I had already started the handwork. How cool would that have been?

Here's a much clearer shot of the backing fabric, chosen only because I had enough of it on hand and we no longer have a store that sells fabric within 43 miles and I wanted to get started. It'll do. The front border fabric was chosen for mostly the same reason, though that particular tan shade is echoed in the design panel, so it looks good. I will have to buy fabric for the binding, and I don't know yet whether to go with orange or green. I'll have plenty of time to contemplate the choice, I think.