FF: Sisters' 10--Finally.

I started this quilt with the Sisters' 10 BOM at Gen X Quilters in January of last year, and it wasn't until this week that I finally managed to find time to sew on the binding!

As I was showing my husband the January quilt blocks, he commented on how much he really liked them, and it was decided then and there that this quilt would be for him. But did I run into trouble with this one. I had all of my blocks finished on time, but I hadn't ordered enough gray solid to complete the top. By the time I got around to ordering more, I couldn't remember what it was! I tried a number of different grays and a number of different fabric shops, and I couldn't find a match. And my husband is all about symmetry. Improv and whatnot makes him nervous, so I knew I couldn't throw in another gray at this point. Kona Coal was a close match, but not the right tone of gray, and finally, I took a chance and ordered a swatch of Kona Steel. Bam. Right color.

I agonized with how to quilt that center section. FMQ? Some sort of geometrical straight line goodness? I decided to make the quilt with straight lines around the center section, and lo and behold, when I started marking, I immediately thought of flying geese flying down the center of the quilt. It turned out more like chevrons, but I like it. I did straight line quilting, 3" apart on the diagonal, for the remainder of the quilt in a matching gray thread.

The back was one of the easier parts. I found that luchador fabric in the clearance section at Pink Castle, and I thought it was hilarious. One of my husband's favorite movies is Nacho Libre, and he's constantly quoting it and making jokes. (When he wrestles with our boys, he actually busts out a modified "anaconda squeeze" move.) But, I didn't want to back the entire thing in that fabric if he wouldn't like it, especially since the top is not quite so silly, so I asked my husband. Between my seeing it, and my asking him, someone bought up a ton of that print, leaving only a yard available for me. I bought it anyway because it needed to be on the back of the quilt, and I like to think that out there somewhere, someone else has a serious quilt with a crazy luchador back. To round it out, I've used some FQs and half yards from stash, some Avengers fabric, and some ninja fabric too. I told you, it's eclectic.

Thanks to several of you lovelies for chiming in on the binding. I did go lime, which seemed the overwhelmingly popular choice. But then I realized, when I bought the FQ bundle of Center City for the top, it included that lime solid without any info about it. How would I match it? Well, I took a chance and bought a solid at random, hoping it wouldn't be too noticeable. Pink Chalk has this awesome feature on their blog where they take fabric lines and pick out solids to match with it, and they recommended Free Spirit solids in Chartreuse with Center City. It matches perfectly, which is just awesome.

And that's the super long story of how this quilt came to be. I guess fourteen months in the making lends itself to a longer story. I'm linking up today with TGIFF hosted by Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts. See you over there!


Oh, and this is my third and final finish from my FAL Q1 list, woo! You can see my original list here.