Quilt top quilted!

Here it is!  I finally took a photo outside to get some decent lighting.  I outlined all the animals and did little loops as filler between them.  On the border I had a very hard time thinking of a design.  I finally went to the quilt shop and flipped through about every machine quilting book they had looking for ideas, then found the stitch that I ended up using, a spiral with spikes around it.

But, let's backtrack!  Last time I posted I had just finished the main top.  Then I went fabric shopping during for the border, backing, and binding fabrics.

border fabric

This is the fabric I selected for the border.  I think it's absolutely gorgeous!  It's perfect because in my head I wanted something rainbow colored and striped for the border, and this meets both criteria while being a little more interesting then plain stripes.

Above is the quilt top with the border on it.  I was worried when I got home that the border was too bright, but I think once assembled it looks pretty nice.

backing flannel

For the backing I ended up with a flannel, because they were on sale, so why not!  It's pretty great too because it has an animal alphabet theme!

Here is the quilt sandwich.  I *always* get lumps in my quilt.  This time after I made the sandwich I would basically check each section before I quilted it to ensure it was still flat.  One problem is that I didn't set the presser foot pressure to zero so it was pushing fabric around as I quilted.  I quilted from the center out so this was generally fine, but in a geometric pattern I think it can screw up your squared edges.  I ended up with only one tiny lump in the front and one unfortunately large lump in the back.  But oh well, the recipient won't mind.  :)

the lump!

Here's a shot of the back, and a close-up to show the border stitching.

a little snippet of the front to show some of the stitching

Finally, wanted to share an amusing anecdote from attaching the binding:  Notice something wrong with this picture?

The binding is twisted!  And this is after I had joined the ends.  So I had some seam ripping to do, only a little, but I thought it was funny.  And then I proceeded to do the same thing again!  But I finally figured out how to put right sides together without twisting it a million times.  :)

Now just to hand-saw the binding onto the back and add in a label.