Quilt for a Smile Status: Complete

Early this morning I stitched down the last inch of binding on my first completed project of the New Year: the Mod Mosaic quilt for Quilt for a Smile.  Not too bad of a turnaround time for me- I started this quilt the first week of December, had a quilt top two weeks later, and now a month later it's done.  It was based on Elizabeth Hartman's floor pillow tutorial, pieced from Patricia Bravo's studio scraps, and is destined for Project Linus (you can see other Quilt for a Smile projects here).   

Large cuts of fabric were used for the "tiles" because I wanted to maximize the yardage of Pure Elements in cabernet that came with the scraps (cutting it less meant I had less of a chance of running out of it).  Plus I was a little lazy. 

I tried to finish before the BAMQG meeting on Saturday, but I had a little binding drama Friday night.  Thankfully I decided to start hand-stitching at one of the corners, which happened to be one of two that were not totally square after I quilted the sandwich.  In trying to keep the binding straight when I was sewing it down, about 1/16"inch of batting was left exposed in each of these corners.  These were on the opposite end of where I joined the ends, and I thought I was going to have to rip back most of the binding.  Luckily, I was able to keep the un-sewing and re-sewing localized to the problem corners, but I had an unfinished quilt to show at the guild meeting.

This quilt is also the first completed project for the Finish-a-Long hosted by Quilter in the Gap.  It's early days, but I think I may have aimed a little low for Q1.  With one of three projects already finished in the first week of the quarter, I may be able to start a few projects to set myself up for Q2.

In the meantime, I'll be moving on to my next unfinished project, the Urban Chic quilt for Antonio, and hand-stitching the binding of a quilt made by a friend of mine.