Fresh Squeezed Quilt

Despite a little bit of angst and some frustratingly mismatched points while sewing (one of which I redid four times before I decided it was just meant to be crooked) the fabulous Fresh Squeezed quilt top is done.

I like it quite a bit, despite its imperfections. If I did it again, I would try to pick more suitable colours for sashings (i.e. the watermelon orange strips between the patchwork diamonds) and for the little single diamonds connecting the sashings. The way I have it, I think the sashings are tonally too similar to the patchwork diamonds, and some of the little diamonds between them are tonally too similar to the yellow background, making them disappear a bit. I suppose every quilt is a learning process, though. Perhaps I need to get out graph paper and pencil crayons and plan things out a bit more, in the future.

It is still a bit garish, although I think having it bounded by the relatively solid fabrics of the sashing and background helps to tone that down a bit. I still love the brightness and cheeriness of it. I wish this photo did the colours justice -- it looks a bit washed out by the flash, toward the bottom. Clearly I need more practice with the camera...

All I need to do now is get some batting and plan out a quilting design for it. I am thinking of trying something a bit fancier than in the past, so I am getting some books on hand-quilting designs from the library. Wish me luck.

In knitting news, the lace edging on the Mystery Shawl is two-thirds done. Hopefully by the end of the weekend, I will have pretty much finished it, so I can block it and show it off. After all, it won't surprise you to know that I have more quilting and knitting projects waiting in the wings, to be started soon...