First Quilty Finish of the Year!

YUP. I did it. I finished my sister's quilt!!

Isn't it great? I love it! I almost don't want to part with it... but I do have another stack of Les Amis fat quarters for myself, so I guess parting with it won't be too hard. I want to give it to her today (it's 6 weeks early, but whatever) so I didn't have a ton of time for pictures before I popped it in the wash. I'll try to get an up close shot after it's all nice and clean :) An up close shot right now would reveal all the dog hair it has somehow accumulated already. Hazards of having a husky!  I fortunately had some fun brown polka dots on hand for the binding, which I love. It is entirely machine bound, which I also love. I like the way machine binding looks, though I might be alone in this! I backed it with some silly animal fabric from Joann that I had around- it doesn't match terribly well (except that it's owls and foxes!), but I was running out of money and didn't have a lot of options. Well, I could've waited until I got a job and some money. But... well, I'm not good at waiting :P

Still, I love it! I am so proud of myself for just jumping in with FMQ and doing it. I think it turned out pretty well for my first time. My stitches are pretty uneven in places and there are a few spots where it slipped and caused a sharp corner instead of a round one, but it's really not that noticeable. I think I will get some quilt gloves next time to prevent the slipping, at least. I feel like I learned a lot from this quilt. My quilting towards the end was much more consistent and pretty than the beginning. Next time will definitely be better.

Also! I forgot to show you. Remember when I said I decided to join my first ever swap? Well I finally got my pretty low volume charms in the mail last week!

This is just a small sampling. Aren't they wonderful? Look at those fun little pins! And the hounds tooth! I couldn't be more pleased! The swap was organized by Lori of Lori H. Designs. She did a fabulous job of it! It was my first swap and everything ran so smoothly. It was definitely not as scary as I thought it would be! I will definitely be on the look out for more swaps in the future. I'm trying to decide what to do with all of these pretty charms. I kind of want to make a low volume pinwheel quilt. Maybe with a few scattered pinwheels with bright, bold solids for interest. What do you think?

I already have so many ideas already spinning in my head of the next projects I want to start... I think I need to make a list. I'll spend some time thinking about that this week and tell you what I come up with!

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts! YEAH! So excited to have a whole quilt finished!! Next I need to tackle quilting the Hounds Tooth quilt... but first I need to find a place in my house big enough to baste it!