quilt finish: postage stamp

It's finished!  My postage stamp quilt that I mentioned here is finished.  I absolutely love it.

I've been referring to this quilt as 'my experimental' quilt.  I ironed all of the seams open (first time ever!), I pinned very carefully, I used a cotton batting (another first), and I machine quilted it (second time).  As experiments goes, this one was a success.

It took me two tries at pin basting to get it just right.  Next time I'm going to make sure to make the back at least 2 inches bigger on all sides.  I pin based starting at the bottom - thinking I had enough fabric ... and was 1/4" short at the top.  I resisted the urge to stretch the fabric and unpinned the entire thing.  [I used this tutorial at Oh Fransson! to learn how to pin baste.]

I was going to use two layers of 'warm-n-natural' batting, but my sister convinced me to only use one.  I thought it would be more 'poofier' (just pretend that's a word) with two layers and show off the quilting better.   I'm glad I just used one.  It crinkled ever so nicely after a trip through the washer and dryer.  Plus, it's surprisingly warm!  (Yup, all of my other quilts have a polyester batting.)

For quilting, I stitched down 1/4" away from every seam.  It sounds like a lot of quilting, but it only took 4 evenings to get it all done.  The first night was the slowest with stopping every few seconds to remove the safety pins.

I did have to bend the metal on my 1/4" acufeed foot to keep the guide from catching on the seams.  I tried to just lift it up with some toothpicks wedged in there and then paper - but it worked best to just slightly bend it up.

I also purposely set the speed slow so that I could keep the seams as straight as possible.
 

sorry!   Taken at night with very crappy lighting ... but the quilting is pretty.

d just enough squares left over to put a stripe across the back.  I love it.  (And yes, I pinned every seam intersection with straight pins and safety pins to get the quilting straight across.)  I think the solid back shows off the quilting.

I didn't get a good picture of the crinkliness (yes, another made-up word), but trust me - it has the perfect amount of crinkle.  I can't think of anything I'd change about it.  It's just perfect in every way.