quilting: the quilt top

Finally (finally!) I have a finished quilt top. Last night I put in the last seam, took out a couple of pins and breathed in a big sigh of relief. Then I fluffed it over Bunny (who had already crawled into bed to watch tv) to show off. The quilt top is done.

I've got this huge feeling of accomplishment in my heart. This is a project I've been dreaming about for years and just getting to this stage has been almost three months in the making.

I made it a somewhat awkward size. It just barely covers a double bed, with no extra width to hang over the edges. That's ok though, because this one was just for the pure joy of learning to quilt. Seeing how things have turned out, there are some parts of the design I'd do differently next time, like putting in square corners if I did sashing again. I'd also make the sashing narrower in comparison to the quilt blocks (the pink is kind of taking over the quilt, and I'd really been aiming for more of an even split of pink/black/silver). I'd also make an effort to work out at least a rough outline of pattern and size before hand, so I know exactly how big I'm planning on making, how much work it is to get it that big, and so I can buy all my fabric for the top at once. The dye lot difference I ran into with one of my patterns rather sucked.

It feels crazy to be done this bit. There's still tons to do to finish the quilt, but with the top pieced I feel like the biggest bit of the project is done. All the fussing over seam allowances and super straight lines. No more pinning tiny squares and cramped fingers.

Today I'm taking a break from quilting. Taking a day or two to just bask in the fact that this part is done and do a little prep work for the next step (ironing, measuring, all that lovely stuff).