A Christening quilt...

Since I have some time back on my hands for sewing, my first priority has been to complete the quilts that I started way back for my nephews' christening gifts. I have one finished and one very near completion and for the first time I am entering a quilt in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival. Click on the picture above to see more amazing quilts. 

I've been waiting for an opportunity to photograph it in its entirety and this was the best I could do. Ignore the hangers! It would have looked good on the lawn but it is too wet and the last thing I wanted was to give away a muddy quilt.

I made such a good start on the first quilt but then it kind of got in a pile of Stuff Still To Do and remained there for some time.  As I completed the blocks for this quilt, I found I had a growing pile of triangle offcuts that I knew would be destined to stay in the bottom of my scrap bin if I didn't make an effort to incorporate them into the quilt somehow.

My FWQAL blocks (which are in the aforementioned pile for the time being) had given me heaps of confidence in sewing with triangles and so I set to making some scrappy stripes for the back of the quilt. And, oh! I love them!

This quilt has been a joy to make. I love the blocks, I love the back and I love that I decided to machine-quilt it.  It is only the second time I have attempted this (the first one is still languishing in The Pile awaiting binding) and it has saved heaps of time as opposed to hand-quilting. I am also dead chuffed with the binding and went with my thoughts that I talked about here.

I have learnt so many things about quilting over the last year, my head is full of ideas and plans.  The second christening quilt is basted and ready to be quilted too -- it feels so good to have my sewing mojo back.

Here's a final couple of photos of the front and back of the quilt, blowing gently in the breeze, all ready to be gifted.