Finished!

I finished my jelly roll race quilt! I'm not sure I should call it a race, as I took my time.

I like all these colours together. Here is a bit of an awkward shot of the finished quilt draped over my favourite chair!

The quilt is backed and bound in the same fabric. It took me a while to decide on a backing fabric, largely because I had some fabric that I thought would suit the quilt but it was a poly cotton. I ended up using it, simply because my goal is to sew using the fabrics that I already have. I was concerned that the poly cotton wouldn't be up to scratch in terms of texture, but once quilted it is pleasantly holding its own!

I was quite pleased with my free motion quilting attempt on this quilt. I haven't done much free motion quilting and what I have done has been limited to mug rug sized items. I thought that allover loops would be a great place to start.

Most of my loops were fine.

In some places I didn't manage to avoid a bit of puckering (though it's not noticeable when looking at the quilt as a whole, just when I zoom in with the camera!). I realized that this would most likely be avoided next time if I move my sewing machine to the dining table. I have a very small area to the left of my machine in my sewing space. I found it very difficult to move the quilt sandwich during quilting due to the lack of space. I'm certain it would have been much easier to quilt if the quilt sandwich was spread out.

In some places my stitches were a little too long (moving the fabric faster than the foot pedal).

And in some (very small) places I have this on the back! I decided to keep them as a reminder of how my quilting began (assuming that it gets better with practise!).

All in all, I'm really pleased! It's always so good to finish things. Love that feeling!!