baby row by row quilt--finished

Welcome to finish it up Friday!

A few weeks ago I stated that I would love to get down to 20 WIPs by the end of the summer. Well, that may seem unlikely, but any finish (without a subsequent start) is a step in the right direction!

This week I took some time to baste and straight line quilt this baby quilt. It's an alternate project in my craftsy class....I thought it would be nice to have a baby sized option in addition to the bed size quilt offered in the class.

I love that it shows a completely different color option than the first quilt (right). I never tire seeing how different colors change the look of a pattern! In fact, I have plans to make yet another row quilt (in the larger size) made with all Denyse Schmidt fabrics. I just need to find the right background fabric....and the time. Ha! (It's no wonder I have so many WIPs, right?)

I chose straight line quilting to finish it off and that decision always wages war with my perfectionist side. Whenever I am in the middle of straight line quilting, I wonder why I thought it was a good idea. My lines are rarely straight and it's not a very forgiving technique at all. I chose to do a little vertical stitching (in the zipper row), because I knew that if I continued with the horizontal stitching in that row, I would have all kinds of distortion. The bit of vertical stitching was definitely the right choice! I used Auriful 2600 (the perfect gray) thread for quilting, which works well with the white background and the bold solids.

For the backing, I used (rather than hoarded) this fabulous old Denyse Schmidt dot print. (It's from JoAnn's, copyright 2011.) I think it's one of my all time fabrics ever! I'm kind of smitten by those flying geese, too. They aren't my favorite to make, but they sure are pretty! I used an Art Gallery solid teal fabric for the binding. I thought it would be a pain to stitch (since the weave of the fabric is more dense than most quilting cottons) but it was actually quite pleasant. I love hand stitching a binding!

The quilt measures 36" x 48". I love how it turned out!

Also, I'm really, really loving my new found photography spots at a nearby park. When I was taking these photographs yesterday morning I had a few people ask "do you make those?", which I thought was kind of funny. I even had a guy ask "do you sell those?" No one called them quilts, but then again, no one called them blankets, either. So that's a win!

Now it's your turn! Please link up your finishes for the week. Thank you, as always, for joining me for finish it up Friday. I really mean it! :)