Unfinished Projects No More

You may remember summer and fall 2012 on this blog--it was a time of high energy and excitement at both of us (me and Ariel, that is) learning how to quilt.  I remember making a lot of quilt tops all at once...and then packing them away, never to be seen again.  Until now, that is.

I've realized lately that I can't keep making more and more quilts and clothing and just leaving these projects in a box, dejected, neglected, and all sorts of sad.  I know they're quilts, but they're all sorts of sad to me.  So I recently pledged--to myself and to my country and to God, I guess, though that's being dramatic--to finish these projects.  The first three quilts I ever pieced would be done by the end of summer.  For every new project, I had to finish an old one.

When there's fabric on the line, as there was in this case, you tend to place things on high priority.

The first quilt I decided to finish was my Modern Maples quilt.  I posted about this originally on September 24, 2012.  Nine months have passed!  Pruin was but a tiny little grape-sized embryo, probably.  I'm honestly not too sure about growth progress but Ariel can back me up here.  It was time, especially because I had purchased fabric for it last October, and the backing and binding were sitting in the box with the quilt top.

Eleanor has already taken to the quilt as if she's had it forever.

I decided to quilt this with straight lines 1/4" away from either side of the blocks, and also lines inside and outside the leaves themselves, again 1/4" away from the outline.  I thought this would add a bit more interest to the blocks.  You can see it didn't crinkle up super well.  I'm not sure if that's because of the spacing or because of a new batting.  Joann no longer carries the brand I've used for the past year, so I had to switch to Mountain Mist Cream Rose 100% cotton batting.  Unfortunately, they also don't carry Warm 'n' Natural in anything but giant sizes, so I take what I can get.

As I was quilting this, I remembered how much I loved it.  Those are some of my favorite fabrics!  And now whoever stays in our guest room can use it.  It's about throw-sized, so unfortunately it isn't big enough for our bed.  Oh well.

I backed and bound it with two prints from Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley line.  I got it on mega discount last fall during the FreeSpirit tent sale, and thought the colors were perfect.  I used a lot of orange and a lot of purple in the quilt, so it matches without being tacky.  I wish I'd had the sense to buy up Hope Valley when it was new.  I love that line!

I really love this quilt even more now that it's backed and bound.  I can't wait to pull it out this fall to use when the house gets drafty (as it did this past winter when we moved in).  However, I've wasted no time and started quilting my Christmas quilt from last year too.  I will finish these!

How many WIPs do you have laying around?  And what'd you sew this weekend?