Four Patch Posey completed

It is exciting to finally see this little lap quilt come full circle.  It is now quilted, bound, washed and dried.  You can see the beginnings of this project posted on my blog back in November 2009.  The top was completed in Hawaii, I even cut the binding in Hawaii.    I just needed the quilting space, a backing fabric and a quilting plan.   I've had so many issues with my quilt frame mixed in with our frequent travel, holidays and company.  But happy to report that it did get finished within the 1 year mark of returning to the mainland (this week last year - woohoo!).  The 4 patches themselves measure 4" square and are cut from repeats in the same section of fabric so that you get a new design within each block.  I decided it would be fun to do something different in each block and quilted many of these designs from "Free-Motion Quilting Made Easy" 186 designs from 8 simple shapes by Eva A. Larkin.   I thought this would be a piece of cake to fill my 56 blocks from designs from this book.  Well.... not really.   So many of the designs were so similar or too busy for a little 4" square block that you may not recognize they are different and a few I loved so much that I did use 2X's.   You may also recall that I decided on a high contrast backing for this quilt and also pieced it so that it had 2 borders from the focus fabric that the quilting should have lined up with the borders on the front.   This was my first time to both on the long arm and I was a little nervous that it was going to turn out a big mess.   But to my surprise, no horrible birds nests on the back and the starts and stops are not that offensive AND one of my borders even matched up perfectly.  2 layers of batting, 80/20 Hobbs and 100% wool for added dimension and comfort.   Oh so soft and cuddly after going through the wash!   Thanks Maia for the focus fabric and the pattern - your gift really helped me pass the time following my shoulder surgery in Hawaii when I was not able to do much more than be indoors.

Back side detail after washing

 these are washed and dried pics