The "Home" Quilt Along quilt top is done!

I am really excited about the way this little mystery wall hanging has turned out!  I do hope you like it as much as I do.

Thank you, everyone, for contributing your ideas as we designed and made this together!

This project was more than a bit scary for me!  I was as much in the dark about the finished product as the brave, faithful folks who bought the block patterns and stitched them up without knowing what the end result would be.

What if it turned out to be a disaster? What if everyone hated it?

What if... what if... what if ....

What ifs counted for more than one sleepless night. But now it's done!
Well, except for the finishing, but that will come later.

The Layout

The final layout that I settled on uses narrow (3/8") dark borders around the blocks to make them pop and wider soft green sashing to pull all of my colors together. Any two colors that bring out the best in your blocks will be wonderful.

I arranged and rearranged the blocks at least a dozen times. In the end, I balanced shapes, sizes, and colors in the best way I could. If you are making this, your block arrangement may be very different, and that is just fine! Who wants a quilt that's identical to everyone else's?

Then came the math. Oh my goodness!
All of those fractions!

Measure, measure, calculate, calculate.
Sew, write, check for errors - I thought I'd never get it right!
Thank goodness that part is done!

I've posted the layout pattern on Craftsy as a free pattern. If you like the layout, you could also use it with any other blocks of the sizes in this quilt. You might use some of my blocks and toss in some of your favorite blocks from here and there. Why not? We quilters are all creators of art, and art is definitely personal.

I said that the finishing will come later. I need to sandwich the top, batting, and backing, then quilt and bind. Sometimes waiting is a good thing! Do you see me smiling?

This quilt is pretty large for quilting on my little sewing machine, but I plan to get a new machine with a wider throat space within the next couple of months. Not a long arm or anything that fancy, but a machine with a 16" throat space so my quilts won't be quite so squished when I work on them. If all goes as planned, this will be my Christmas gift!

That's why I'm smiling!

When I have the new machine set up "Home" will be the very first quilting project.

Wishing all of you happy stitching and a very happy home!

And, please send me photos! I'll add them to the Quilt Along Photos page at the top of this blog. Can't wait to see what you do with this!