A Happy Quilt

Are you sick of this quilt yet? :)

 I know you've heard lots about it before [like here and here] but it's finally done!!!  I was so happy to pull it out of the dryer the other day.  It's such a happy quilt.  One of my fav's at the moment...

I had fun giving it a little photo shoot this morning

[so bear with me for sharing about a gazillion pictures.]

This project has been in the works since about last April, when my dear, sweet SIL asked me if I wanted to make one with her.  We were inspired after seeing Allison's zig zag quilt over at Cluck, Cluck, Sew.  The main reason it took me so long to finish was because I got stuck figuring out what colors zig zags to make.  I started out with red, orange, yellow, green, and aqua.  Then I made the dark blue and brown zig zags, but was unsure about them because they weren't as happy as the other colors.  But I needed them to add length to my quilt AND I still needed two more zig zags.  Should I repeat a couple colors?  No.  I finally decided each zig zag should be different so I decided to break up the green into dark and light and then I also added in purple.

 I love the fabrics that I collected, both from my own stash and

from trading 5" squares with my SIL and a friend.

[Trading is so fun!  Fresh, new fabrics + no money spent = exciting!!!]

We cut our squares to 4-7/8", drew a line on the diagonal and sewed on both sides of that line with a 1/4" seam allowance ~ giving us our 4-1/2" QST blocks.  

For the binding I chose LH10017 Banana by Lakehouse Dry Goods. 

I actually didn't really love the fabric that much to begin with, but after trying out lots of possibilities, the yellow and orange dot won out.  While doing some "research" at work, my co-worker and I were able to narrow down the options for possible bindings.  Rainbow stripes competed too much, large red gingham made the quilt look off balance, aqua wasn't bright enough...Alas, the yellow and orange was just the right amount of cheerfulness and color, without taking away from the zig zags. 

A white back and perfect stippling by Kaylene Parry from My Little Quilting Shoppe in Lehi, UT. finished off the quilt nicely ~ all the while, keeping the focus on my darling little zig zags.

[These last two pictures are my fav's.]

O.K.  That's it.  Thanks for letting me share.  I'll stop talking about it now.