Christmas Canasta quilt complete.

Hi there. I hope you had a great Christmas. We spent time at my parent's house and my brother was home from the U.S, there was lots of eating and relaxing which was great. I was in need of a few days rest. I'm not back at work for another week so there should be time for some sewing.

I made my brother a quilt for Christmas and I didn't finish it until 23.45 on Friday, I needed to get it done by Christmas Eve and just managed to get it done with 15mins to spare. Many thanks go to my husband who took over cooking duties for the last week while I worked on getting it finished. Note to self, start a project like this with more time to spare another time.

I would highly recommend the pattern which was the Natural Canasta Quilt by Elizabeth Hartman from oh Franson!
I did make a few mistakes which were frustrating but that was more down to me rather than the pattern.

Sorry about the photo quality, they were taken in a hurry on a phone.
I used fabric from a variety of ranges. I didn't realise until I started this quilt that there is a severe lack of fabric ranges out there for men. It took ages tracking down appropriate fabrics but I'm pleased with how this quilt turned out.

The original quilt is quilted in an all over free motion design. I wanted a more geometric look so quilted about a quarter of an inch around the seam line of some of the squares.
After spending so many hours together I've had to wave goodbye to the quilt as today it's off to it's new home at my brother's apartment in NYC.

Happy New Year!

Maria x
I've linked this post to Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day. The button is over on my side bar. I can't work out how to put it here. Any help with this would be appreciated!
Tuesday 3rd Jan: Also linked to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story, button on side bar.
Friday 6th Jan. Now linking to Amylouwho's Sew and Tell Friday. Again, button on side bar.

A finish on Friday.

The cushion I made for the Duo QAL on flickr is finished. Hurray! The block is a concentric square design which was quick and easy to make.

I tried some new to me quilting patterns which include feather quilting, clam shell and pebble quilting. The hand quilting is in a variagated perle thread. 

The cushion has an envelope closure on the reverse and the back is quilted which helps to make it nice and squishy. It's great how reading craft blogs shows you new ways of doing things. A revelation to me was binding the edges as you would a quilt, I can't remember which blogs I read it on but thanks to whoever you are. It saves making a piped edging , I love it.

I made the cushion to match the quilt I made for Lily's Quilts Dead Simple QAL. I love the autumnal colours.

Here it is with the back of the quilt.

Now onwards and upwards. I decided, perhaps rather too late to Christmas to make a quilt as a Christmas gift for a member of my family. The fabrics are washed and ironed ready and I've decided on the design which I've designed myself but  I'm nervous to cut into the fabrics and get going in case my design doesn't work...............I'll show my progress soon.

I'm linking this post to Amylouwho's  sew and tell Friday, her button is in my side bar if you fancy popping over to see what others have been up to.

Also linking to Crazymomquilts Finish it up Friday.
Now also linking to Fabric Tuesday over at Quiltstory.