A Blockwork Orange - WIP Completed

 I was reading someone's blog the other day, and she commented that it isn't her having too much fabric in her stash that makes her anxious, but all those unfinished projects laying around.  I tend to agree.  I have too many projects in various stages of completion to be truly comfortable starting a new project.

And I have so many projects in my head, just waiting for a few minutes of my time.  I try not to set ultimatums for myself.  I don't like to tell myself, "You can't start anything new until you finish at least one unfinished project."

But sometimes, that is the way I feel.

So, I am proud to announce that I have finished another WIP!  (Everyone, please say, "Yay!")  It is so satisfying to get them out of the basket - sandwiched, quilted, bound, voila!

Last spring, I joined a Flickr block swap aptly named A Blockwork Orange, based on Elizabeth Hartmann's wonky 9-patch lattice tutorial.  I made the blocks, sent them off, got the swapped blocks in exchange, and promptly stuck the fun mail package up on the shelf - too often, never to be heard from again.

But sometime in November, believe it or not, I actually put the quilt top together.  I made mine quite a bit bigger than the original.  I hate to keep tugging at a quilt to try to keep all of me warm, so the size of her quilt didn't work for me.  I like quilts at least 54" x 70" or so. Elizabeth's quilt had 27 wonky 9-patch blocks, plus the appropriate white lattice squares.  This one has 43 9-patch squares and proportionally more white squares as well.  The 9-patch tutorial makes 9 blocks at a time, so I have 2 blocks I didn't use.  Not sure what I will do with those....

Anyway, once I finished the top, I put it back in my project basket where it sat for awhile.  It is so easy to lose enthusiasm for a project when that happens, don't you think?

Last Saturday, I got it out and sandwiched it, but didn't have time to get the quilting done.  And I am purely worthless during the week, and this week was worse than most.

So, yesterday morning, I got up and started quilting.  And despite the interruptions, actually had it bound before I went to bed.

I picked this orange birdie backing from JoAnn's.  I couldn't find a thing at my LQS that I wanted to back this quilt.  This fabric is so fun, it makes me happy.  And it has a very nice hand.  I really like it.

Isn't this cute?

And I picked this cute polka dot fabric for the binding.  Also from JoAnn's BTW.  I L-O-V-E it. 

This is just a happy quilt, and makes me smile.