Here is the result of the 40 six-inch string blocks I pieced last week.  I really like the way it came out.

The back is the end of a bolt of a kind of Japanese feel taupey gray circle print.  I just barely had enough, and it is perfect on the back.

Dark gray would have worked for the binding, but was a little hard to coordinate with the backing.  The soft orange hand dye looks good to me.

I’m very happy with the quilting.  First I stabilized it by stitching in the ditch on all the vertical and horizontal seams with Bottom Line.  I almost always start like this.  It isn’t very noticable in the finished quilt, but it really does keeps things from going askew.

Then I quilted randomly placed leaves all over the top.  I cut an 8 1/2″ template and traced about 60 of them (they are so random they are hard to count).  I used two strands of light gray Sulky rayon thread to do the stitching.  There are also two “special” leaves where I tried using a silver metallic or a dark gray thread.  I didn’t stick with either, but I left the two experiments to be surprises to discover.

This did start as a donation quilt, but it is only 48″ x 72″.  I like that size for a throw, but quilt drives often prefer larger ones, so it’s going in my Etsy shop soon.

What have you finished?

I’m linking up with Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.