My String Quilt quilted and bound!

My first finished quilt of 2012, although the quilt top has been in my WIP pile since March 2010! This is also the last project I have to finish off  which is a great way to start off this year don't you think! I'm not sure why it took me so long to get around to quilting this quilt. I guess because it is for us it was not urgent and I had other projects that actually had deadlines to complete by. Also I think because I love this quilt so much I was a little bit intimidated by how to quilt it without ruining the design. The free-motion quilting is far from perfect in some of the squares where I first started off but I quickly got better and figured out the best way of dealing with the bulk of the quilt as I was sewing. 

I think I love the back as much as the front which is just made up of fabrics from  my stash that needed to be used up. I used a variegated thread in the bobbin for the quilting which mixes in with all those colours so it neither stands out too much or gets lost either.

Here's a close-up shot of the decorative machine stitch I used. I really like the effect that this rainbow thread makes as you sew. If you're interested the decorative threads I have used they are mostly all by the Guutermann brand which are readily available in most places I think.

And here's one of my favourite shots of it taken on our back steps leading to our garden. Thankfully yesterday it stopped raining so I could take it outside for its photo-shoot. You can see more photos here on my flickr page. This is a true scrap quilt as it started off with a scrap swap with some ladies in the Old Red Barn flickr group. I added scraps from my own stash, used up scraps for the back and also ends of binding leftover from previous quilts and projects. It certainly feels good to have made a quilt entirely from scraps and of course it makes an interesting quilt to make and look at. I can pick out fabrics that were leftover from dresses I made my girls when they were younger and fabrics that are from a different era that were given to me from an Auntie, and even a couple of fabrics from the very first quilt I made. I have to say my stash is nicely getting depleted of fabrics I have had for a little too long.

Now I'm off to start a brand new project :-)