Finished Faith, Hope & Love quilt

My mom took the boys for a couple of nights this past weekend.  Josh and I got a lot done around the house, had friends over, finished my quilt, had a Dairy Queen date… good times!

Here is the finished quilt:

The design is not mine.  The design and pattern is from Susan Marth. 

As I mentioned in the previous post about this quilt, it is a quilt-as-you-go pattern.  The strips are all sewn to the batting and backing first, meaning the applique was added after the quilting was done.  Not the normal order.

For those of you non-applique-ers, the edges of applique should be turned under or finished with a stitch, not only to secure the position of the applique shapes to the quilt, but also to prevent the fabric from fraying. 

Since the applique pieces were fused onto this quilt, I was skeptical about finishing the edges because at the same time I would be quilting through all of the layers.  I decided to quilt tiny loops along every raw edge to make sure the applique letters and shapes weren’t going anywhere.  It ended up looking like a decorative stitch, which made me happy.

Here are a few close-up looks:

While we’re on the subject of applique, I want to share a good tip I received in an applique class once: [when finishing raw edge applique] if you can’t find a thread color to match your fabric exactly, always choose a darker color thread versus a lighter thread. 

That golden nugget of advice has served me well!  I’ve often been surprised by how good some threads look that I wouldn’t have initially selected. 

****

1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.

And while we’re on the subject now of love, I’d like to wish a happy anniversary to my parents today.  Twenty-nine years!  Congratulations!  You’re the best!