The So Many Fun Fabrics Quilt

Back in November I shared a small version of a big quilt that I was planning on making slowly throughout 2013 for when my littlest moves into a bed.  Well, I have been slowly working on it since November but decided that my February sewing goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes was to finish half of the quilt top.  And then for some unknown reason last week, motivation struck and I finished not just the top but the entire quilt.

I had already sashed all of the novelty fabrics in both a print and the kona snow so all that was left was putting it all together.   And once I started, I just kept going.  Improv piecing with no specific plan is really my favorite way of piecing.  I just cut several strips of varying widths of kona snow and a handful of bright prints and then just randomly put it all together with the blocks.

Since I don't usually make quilts this large, I didn't have enough basting pins so instead I decided to thread baste and I think I will be doing so from now on.  For me, it didn't take any longer than pin basting and I really liked not having to worry about mistakenly sewing over the pins when quilting.

I decided to stick with FMQ swirly loops for the quilting and quilted the novelty prints a bit less than the rest of the quilt.  I used Aurifil 50wt in color 2600 - it is a light gray thread that I think works well with all the colors in this quilt.

I used the scrappy binding that I showed in this post.

And I used lots of bright, colorful prints for the back.

I really enjoyed having a big project that I could work on in bits and pieces when I had the time.  And now that it is finished, I've been thinking a lot about finding another project that I can slowly work on throughout the year.  Of course, my other daughters want their own version of this quilt but well, I reminded them that they also know how to sew!  Or maybe this could be something we can work on together!

Linking to A Lovely Year of Finishes and Crazy Mom Quilts.