A Finished Quilt

It seems like it's been ages since I've finished anything, but it's been a crazy summer.  And it's September already!  But I finally spent some time at the sewing machine and finished this quilt.  I've called it "Sweet Dreams".

I'm so pleased with how this quilt turned out.  The soft palette of gray & cream is so soothing and perfect for a gender-neutral baby quilt.

I tried something new in the quilting process this time.  The design is from my new book by Charlotte Warr Andersen, called "One Line at a Time - 24 Geometric Machine-Quilting Designs Made Easy".  As much as I like free-motion quilting, there's just something about precise straight lines that I love.  I guess it's my engineering background, but I like precision.  Her instructions teach you how to mask off the design area with 1" wide painters tape that serves as your guidelines, but the design of my blocks gave me the exact guidelines I needed, only on a 2" scale, instead of 1".  So there was absolutely no marking, no templates - nothing - just stitch and go - so easy!  I have to admit, it took a little concentration to make sure I didn't make any wrong turns, but it wasn't hard.  And it's continuous - edge to edge - so no thread breaks either!  Now I'm ready to try some more of the designs in this book.  

I wanted to get a little more creative with my photos for my Etsy listing, with the hopes that a good photograph might create some more interest.  Being a baby quilt, I thought of skies, clouds, and of course - the new windmills that have been popping up in our area.  So on our Sunday afternoon drive today, I took my quilt and my camera along and stopped along the roadside for a little photo shoot.  Unfortunately, I wasn't happy with the photos of the quilt with the windmills in the background, but with the help of PicMonkey.com, I was able to work with some of the others.  If you'd like to see the five finalists I picked, they're on my Etsy listing here.