Giant Winter Swoon Quilt

It’s finally finished! My giant winter swoon quilt!

I’ve been working on this quilt for nearly 3 months – and honestly, I’ve had it finished for at least one month – just waiting on binding. I started out making this as a gift for a swap I participated in back before Christmas – except when I got it all assembled I realized two things. 1) This is wayyy to big to mail cheaply. 2) I love this quilt too much to part with it. So I kept the big version, and cranked out a mini for the swap.

With the snow we’re finally experiencing this week (yay snow!!!) I had some time to finish this beauty – and clearly Shinobi wanted to help. She does, after all, claim ALL quilts finished in this house. Seriously, this is a quilt-lovin’ cat.

Like I said earlier, I’ve had this nearly finished for a while. But I kept debating on adding more quilting to the piece. I thought about going around the snowman circles with quilted circles, and possibly adding a design in the plaid bits, but, after laying it out and looking at all of the straight-line quilting I’d done in the white areas, it just felt complete. Also, as always, finished trumps perfect.

The fabric is all from my stash (except the backing fleece) and includes leftover pieces from my Christmas Tree Skirt and a couple of fat quarters of fun, snowman fabric purchased at a local quilt shop.

For the quilting, I stuck to concentric lines in the all of the white areas, which turned out to me much more quilting than I’m used to – but I love it so much. It’s just crinckley and wrinkley enough to be cuddle-worthy without being too heavy.

For the back, I used some plaid fleece – which makes it extra warm and hides the bobbing threads.

Below you can just see the quilting on the back. Excuse the stray bits – the fleece really does pick up everything.

To bind, I first sewed the bias tape to the backing, and then went along the front edge with a zig-zag stitch. Again, this is not my normal binding method, but I do love how it turned out. It was a perfect choice for this quilt.And, as with all of my quilts, this one is finished with a label and lots of love. That makes another project I can cross of my to-sew list. Also, this one passed the great-quilt test, and was snatched up by my Dad as soon as he got home. The fleece backing did him in – I’m sure of it.

What have you been working on lately?