The quick-slow quilt

My quilt is finished.  Once I got down to it, the rest of the quilting only took me a few evenings, and it was all done by Friday afternoon.

Yesterday I set about trimming and binding it.  This is my favourite part of quilt making as you finally see the whole thing coming together for the first time.

I laid the quilt out and trimmed all the edges.

Then I cut seven strips from this Michael Miller dot fabric, and made the binding.

With every quilt I make (this is my third) I get much better at making neat mitred corners.  But something I never learn is how l...o...n...g... it takes me to hand sew the back of the binding on.  I started off claiming it would take me an hour before tea, and then a couple of hours later I started revising my estimates downwards.  I finally finished at 12:55am. 

But of course it was worth it.  I slept under it and this morning took some finished photographs out on the railings at the front of our house.

Details: The three fabrics which make up the quilt top are all by Kaffe Fassett, and the binding fabric is by Michael Miller.  The backing fabric is a small white-polka-dot-on-red fabric from my local fabric shop.  The pattern is broadly based on one in Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts, called Six of One and Half a Dozen of Another.  I started it last May, made the top in a day and then left it half quilted for nearly seven months before finishing it over the last few weeks.  It would have indeed been a last-minute quilt without that seven month hiatus.

I love it!