pivots quilt

Oh, boy.  This is a colorful quilt, and I love it.  My first Christmas gift finish!  Yay!  I used my drunkards path die for my GO! Cutter to cut it out, and it went together so quickly and easily.  Curves aren't my favorite to sew, but I love the way they look. 

When I started cutting out this quilt, I knew that I wanted to use only solids, but my solids stash is embarrassingly small, so I quickly ran out of variety and color and added in some almost solids.  The overall effect is basically the same and I didn't purchase any new fabric for it.  Yay!

With the front so bright and bold, I knew I wanted the backing to be muted and mellow.  I really wanted one piece for the whole back, but didn't have the yardage, so I pieced a few together.

 I quilted the circles free motion in spirals, and I cannot bring myself to show you close ups, they are terrible.  It's a shame, I know nobody really notices, but I wish they were better.  I know that spirals are much better done with a walking foot, but I could not bring myself to push this quilt through my machine that many times. I also stitched in the ditch between each circle, so it's still soft.

 Black and White binding.  It was the best option with all that color!

 p.s.  bonus points to anyone who gets the pivots reference...(farmers will know)

apple core!

While I'm talking about curves and my GO! cutter, I have a finished quilt to share, that turned out really great.  I worked hard on this quilt for a while and then we moved (the move before this last move) and I lost my motivation to sew rounded seams, and it was put away for a long time.  When I finally decided to just finish it, it actually went together really fast and turned out really great.

I used fabric from Denyse Schmidt's line, Hope Valley, this line has really grown on me.  I vacillated between loving it and not loving it, but in the end, I really like it.  The colors are unique and work so well with each other and with so many other fabrics.

I started out pinning my apple cores, and then stopped...I've said it before, I don't like pinning.  Perfection is not worth the effort.  It all ended up coming together just fine, and I'm sure I owe that to the GO! cutter.

I backed it in the ubiquitous numbers print from IKEA, which I love,

 and bound it in a black and white stripe.  (for my birthday last year, my sister in law sent me a LONG roll of black and white bias binding, all sewn up and ready to use.  Isn't that the best gift?  I need to remember it).