Indie Quilt: Finished!

Finally.  After much procrastination, it's done.

I put off the backing and binding for weeks.  It's my least-favorite part of making a large quilt. It's just so hard to get the fabric completely smooth.  At least the front was already quilted, so I knew that part would look wrinkle-free.  I don't recommend the use of quilt basting spray.  Yikes.  What a mess.  Just ask my poor husband, who really tried to help me with that part.  By the end, our socks were sticking to the floor, and the quilt was crooked and creased.  But we emerged victorious!

This came out exactly as I envisioned it, which nearly never happens to me.  I kinda made it up as I went, with the intent of having large enough pieces of the prints to be able to fully appreciate them.  I just love this fabric! (Indie by Pat Bravo, in case you missed that part.)  I sewed up the strips first, and then quilted as I sewed them together into rows.  The top corner has a blank navy rectangle, which adds  a fun bit of asymmetry.

I detest hand-sewing binding, so I wrapped the edges of the backing around to the front and machine stitched the whole thing.

The backing is a couple of large pieces of my favorite prints from the front.

Military Uniforms in My Quilt?

Now that I have abandoned my overwhelmingly huge idea for the New York Beauty Blocks (and further downsized it into the goal of a twin-sized quilt for my daughter!), my mind has moved on to deciding on a more manageable quilt for my own bed.

I am really loving the new Indie collection by Pat Bravo, and have a fat quarter pack of the entire line in my cart right now at The Intrepid Thread.  I am planning a scrappy-yet-planned simple quilt and want to use a navy solid to add some modern edge.

Indie, image courtesy of Fresh Lemon Quilts

I considered ordering several yards of the Moda Bella Solid in Admiral Blue, and then I saw the towering pile of Coast Guard ODU uniforms on my office floor.  Every few years, the Coast Guard is nice enough to change the required daily uniform that my husband must wear, rendering his old uniforms obsolete and costing us an arm and a leg to replace with the new regulation version.  They just so happen to be navy blue.  They are also 50% cotton and 50% nylon.   They have been washed enough times that they're really soft.

 I am tempted to try repurposing them, but am unsure how they will work with quilting-weight cotton.  Anyone have any experience with this to share? It would make buying those new uniforms seem not quite as pricey!