It's only been a year in the making....

Quilt tops abound here at Poppyprint, but finished, bound quilts? Hmmm. Not that often. Like so many others obsessed with fabric combinations in quilting, I am easily distracted by the next exciting fabric line/pattern/quiltalong/block and as a result my UFO's linger. And linger.

Over a year ago, Laurie Wisbrun  and Kaufman very kindly shared a LOT of her sweet, graphic holiday line called Brrr! with me. Around the same time, Chelsea started the Made in Cherry quiltalong on her blog. It had been a while since I made a big quilt and I thought this free Lecien pattern by Sarah Fielke would be an ideal one for Laurie's prints. The 5" square sized allowed the polar bears and large polkadots to shine, instead of getting all chopped up and lost in small piecing. The bright aqua, red and green colours are even more fun on the field of medium grey background.  The quilt is bound with Laurie's adorable stripy/dotty print in the Holiday colourway that I cut on the bias: perfect.

Here's the top getting a good soaking on some white rain that accumulated last year!

I made the top really fast (for me) and showed you last year. Then, I pieced left over large chunks of  Brrr! with some coordinating Kona solids and the back went together lickity split as well.

Then we went on a month-long family trip to France.

By the time fall rolled around, I realized that sometimes the best way to complete a large quilt is to get help. I took the top and back down to Seattle for Krista K2 to work her magic. I'd seen her Baptist Fan quilting on Krista's K3 quilt (confused yet? There are three of us!) and asked her to quilt mine with the same design, with an aqua thread.  The pattern is programmed into IQ, a computerized system that Krista can use on her longarm when she's not working her dreamy free-motion quilting magic.

I just love how incredible this very traditional quilting pattern looks on this decidedly contemporary quilt! I will definitely have more large quilts done with the Baptist Fan.  It is the first quilt I've made that has Polydown batting inside. I've always been a stickler for cotton blend batting, but Krista convinced me that that the quilting texture would really shine with a slightly poufier batting.  Of course, she was absolutely right! Trust the experts.

The polar bears will go to live two blocks away at SIL's house, on her spare bed. She's already said she likes the back better (that's how she rolls) so that's likely the side that will be 'up'. I haven't yet decided what to do about a label, in that case.