Peace: A Finished Quilt

When life gives you lemons, make a quilt.

The family member I made this quilt for received it in the mail today as a surprise. Giving a quilt to someone who appreciates and loves it is one of the best feelings. :)

In progress: basting. At this point I finally knew what the quilt looked like all together!

I used her favorite color of all: green. I started out by staring at Lizzy House's butterfly print (Butterfly Box in Green), and since it has ALL THE GREENS, it became the focal print.

 I sewed strips around each square in a log-cabin-like fashion, often piecing scraps together as I went. This kind of sewing is mindless, freeing, and fun - what I love to do! Then, I added strips as needed to make the butterfly prints lay in a circle  and make the blocks equal sizes in their rows. There was very little measuring - mostly eye-balling. Again, how I best love to work.

This is my favorite block - the teals. The cranes! Those moons! I must really love the quilt recipient!

To bring forth the circle motif, I decided to quilt a circle in the middle and intersect other circles from each block. When I first started quilting, I didn't know if I was going to continue the large circle or make the smaller ones. I'm glad I went with the latter; it was much easier to quilt! Thanks to the Periscope community for helping with that decision. :)

I quilted using my free motion foot only. While many (including myself in the past) use only their walking foot for this motif, I have more control and turn less with my FMQ foot. See more about this on my Spiral Quilting Tutorial.

I backed the quilt in a fabric I know she loves (by Valori Wells), surrounded by two panels by Juliana Horner. You can see the quilt label peeking out there. Instead of piecing the label into my backing (which can be a huge pain) or sewing it on afterwards, I appliqued it onto the backing before I quilted. It was easy and it still got quilted over. Score!

Whenever I make a quilt for someone specifically, it makes me think about them all the time. I hope the thoughts are felt!

This is the first of two quilts (at least, at the moment) that I'm giving this holiday season. 

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You can read and see more about this quilt here and here.

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story.