Back of Julia's Quilt

Okay, next installment of the quilt for my cousin Julia.

This is a close up of the backing fabric:

I took some of the fabrics from the front and cut out the letters of her name and enlargements of the flowers on the white fabric, to be appliqued.

I don't really bother with heat'n'bond paper, glues or sprays to fix applique in place; I either find that the quilt gets too stiff with an extra layer, or don't have the stuff and can't be bothered to buy them for the rare times I need them.  I'm more of a piecer, on the whole. So pins do the trick for me...

I did the quick way of appliqueing, i.e. zigzagging around the shapes. Folding the edges under and hand-appliqueing is a lot prettier, but also takes a lot longer, and of course, there's a deadline for this quilt (upcoming birthday).

Okay, time for basting!

Special Order For My Cousin

See that white background fabric? My grandma bought a big chunk of it and said "Please use this an make a quilt for your cousin Julia, pattern doesn't matter, I leave it all up to you".  Okay :)

After a year of pretty much no quilting, I had to remember quite a bit, but it was pretty much like cycling :) 

I decided to use the white fabric for the back and picked a bunch of fabrics for the front that match in colour. 

I found it a bit too girlish, despite the green I added for a splash of something else, so I switched the purple against a burgundy. Much better, and better contrast, too. I know, I know, it's a quilt for a little girl, but in my experience, most girls grow out of pink/purple :)

I decided to do a pattern that I've used once before using brown and turquoise. The idea was that I wouldn't have to do any calculations, but of course I did, because I ended up making the blocks a bit smaller to fit the backing fabric. The page of notes in my design book got pretty messy, and I noticed how rusty I was considering seam allowances in my calculations...

After a few blunders, I got the hang of it again (especially the 'measure twice, cut once', haha).

And here's my first layout of the front, hooray!

I've always liked photos of quilt tops against the light (have seen that on several other blogs) - it looks so much like a church window, so I decided to take one of these too!  I'm excited about this quilt and to be quilting properly again...

Now the question is: will I remember how to turn corners on the binding???? :)