My third finish of the year — Marta’s Quilt:

I started this quilt last spring as part of a Quilt-Along led by Jenny Pedigo of sewkindofwonderful.com and finished the top in June. The pattern is Jenny’s own design, Urban 9-Patch. I added the fuchsia diamonds between the blocks for an extra jolt of color.

Why did it take so long to get it quilted? Well, I had lofty ideas of doing some fancy free motion quilting (FMQ) on it. The longer I put off practicing my free motion quilting skills, the longer the quilt top languished. There’s just no getting around the fact that FMQ demands lots of practice.

Little Miss Marta is now 14 months old. I figured I’d better hurry up and get her quilt done before she graduates from college. I had done some preliminary stitching in the ditch to stabilize the blocks in preparation for FMQ. I stitched in more ditches and then quilted ribbons in the center of each block and a loop-de-loop in the borders to finish it.

A leftover block went on the back:

Don’t you love that wrinkly, crinkly look a quilt gets when it’s been washed?