Blogger's Quilt Festival - Spring 2013

It's that time of year again!

 It's the Blogger's Quilt Festival!!  Two times a year, Amy from Amyscreativeside.com hosts the most awesome quilt festival....literally a feast for your eyes!!!  I was so glad to see that the deadline for submissions is May 17-24, 2013 as it gave me that extra boost to finish up my husband's quilt!  It's true, almost everyone in my family has been given a quilt, except for my husband:(  Sad, but true.  So, the ladies of the Unscripted Bee helped me put this one together.  So, without further ado, here is my submission for the Group or Bee Quilt Category:

Of course, Miss G had to get in on the action as I had my husband hold the quilt up yesterday afternoon in our backyard.  To those of you who follow me, sorry to go on and on about this quilt but I swear it's been quite a process to come together.....slow, slow, slow for sure.  I posted on the many phases of its completion, but this will be the last one....honest:)

I first fell in love with Victoria's Waverunner quilt....here's the tutorial.  I had made this quilt for my stepson two years ago so I had a lot of solid scraps left over.  Luckily, my husband loved the colour combo so the quilt idea was born!

I knew I wanted to quilt it with concentric circles.  I personally love BloomingPoppies tutorial on concentric circular quilting.  I quilted this on my home machine with my walking foot.  As I didn't have a guide for it, I ended up having to use the edge of the foot as my guide which makes for dense quilting in the end.  

I do love the effect though!

As for the binding I used Kona Charcoal as I wanted a darker binding to match the back (pics soon as the quilt is in the wash).  I personally like a thinner binding, so to switch things up a bit, I decided to go with a 2 inch binding versus my usual 2.25 inches.  It certainly is tighter, but if you're machine quilting the binding on, it's the way to go.   I usually use Rita's (RedPepperQuilts) method of attaching the binding but I decided to attach it to the back and then sew down the front with a seam that's really close to the edge.  My thread blends not only with the binding colour but is also hidden in the backing as I used a light grey thread to do all of the quilting.  I have to say by the time I was done with the quilting, I was very eager to get the binding attached and be all done!!!  I wish I could say I love to hand stitch the binding, but I don't have the patience:(

For the back, I chose flannels (Sketch in Charcoal, Royal Blue and Red with a piece of Washi in the centre).  I love a flannel backing because it makes the quilt all nice and cozy!  I'm sending it along with my husband so he'll have it when he's at the fire station on his nights at work.  The colours represent the navy (he's a navy diver in the reserves) and a fire fighter (had to have a little splash of red).

So thank you to the ladies of the Unscripted Bee for all of their hard work!

Quilt Size: 49x56

Quilting:  Home machine by me:)

Based on: Victoria Bumblebeans' Waverunner Quilt

Fabrics:  Kona Cottons