QAWM All Done

My QAWM quilt "Garden Patch" is quilted and bound and all done. I even trimmed all the tail ends of the threads. Well, I think I trimmed them; every now and then I find untrimmed thread on a quilt long  years after I have finished it.

I learned some things as I was  doing the quilting  on this quilt. Because there were  so many stops  and starts I worked on quilting the little V's one block at a  time after I  quilted the whole quilt in the ditch around each block. I learned it really isn't so much about stopping and starting and as it is about turning the quilt again and again. Wrestling with the quilt and turning it and shoving it through the arm of the machine is HARD WORK. By making more stops and starts and thinking about where I  should go next I used more thread and had more ends to clip but I did not have to turn the quilt so many times. I also realized that when I am quilting across the  whole quilt I  do not have the same  appreciation for each block and the way the colors and patterns interact. I enjoy that aspect when I am piecing but I  enjoyed it again as I was quilting.

As I was quilting it I grew to like it more and  more with each block. By the time I finished I was sorry to think that my stash of floral fabrics is down to a not so full box. My goal  was to use them up and I have been using them to piece backs for several big quilts. I have been buying floral fabrics for all of the time I have been quilting and I realize the reason I am drawn to them is they usually have many colors and shades and  tones in each fabric.  I finished the binding this time by hand.  I was not happy with the last binding I did entirely by machine and I really like this one too much to mess up on the binding.

I forgot to take a photo of the back after it was quilted but here is the photo I took when I finished piecing it our retreat .this fall. 

This close up shows the  quilting in the setting triangles and the binding. I had a hard time choosing a binding but I found this orange and purple when i was looking for something else.