A quilt for my mother-in-law

Another set of fabric I eyed a while before buying was this great Christian music fabric from Hobby Lobby:

I imediately wanted it specifically for my mother-in-law as both the colors and theme seemed perfect for her. She's a great lady and has been such a huge help to me since the birth of my daughter.

As with all my quilts, it took me a little while to settle on a pattern, then Twin Fibers posted a kaleidoscope quilt she had made for her son and I realized how awesome this would look out of the tossed fabric with the large blocks as a border.

Was I wrong? I used a tutorial from Don't Call Me Betsy, and was surprised at how quickly the center panel came together. If this pattern intimidates you, don't let it. There is some bulk, of course, as the points come together, but overall I found it to be a fairly quick and easy pattern.

It was the blocks in the border that gave me fits!

It's bad enough that they are all different sizes, but they are not printed straight. They're not rectangles, they are trapezoids, with every side slanting. I fretted a while trying to figure out how to join them with just one piece of the brown, but gave up. I just added some brown to all 4 sides & then squared it up to a finished size of 8 1/2" x 10 1/2".

I played with the idea of machine quilting it, but I couldn't seem to do what I wanted to do on the machine, so I gave up & hand quilted it. I was a bit against the idea at first because it would take so l  o  n  g, but I ended up enjoying it and really glad I did it. In fact, I let my 4 year old help me with a section - I thought that would make it extra special!

I think you can see the overall quilting design from this shot of the back:

The back is pieced from another Hobby Lobby print of the Christian fish symbol. I had plenty of fabrics left over from the top that I could have used for the back, but I really wanted those fish on the back.

Quilt stats:

Fabric: Kona Bright Pink, Kona Earth, and prints from Hobby Lobby.
Size: 64" x 80"
Batting: Warm & Natural

What I learned

This is the quilt where the backing shifted on me. It's not very densly quilted anyway, and most of the quilting doesn't go all the way to the edge. I didn't realize this until I had the binding mostly sewn to the back. I went ahead and finished sewing the backing to the back, and then I went back to the machine and sewed in the ditch of the binding seam to reinforce it. Now I know that whenever my quilting doesn't go all the way to the edge, I should sew a line 1/8th inch from the edge of the top BEFORE I trim the backing. Then, no worries when attaching the binding.

I can't wait to give this to her on Christmas Eve!