Quilt number 2 all done

Once again, the blog seems to have got away from me, this time because I've been stitching like a madman to get the binding sewn onto my Plain Spoken quilt. But now it's done! This is my first real quilt—the first one that's fully pieced together. I wasn't expecting the quilting to make such a difference to the texture, but it makes all the difference. I love it.

It also has the seal of approval from the pattern designers themselves, Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr of FunQuilts (and authors, of course, of The Modern Quilt Workshop)! After listening to the fascinating interview with Weeks on CraftSanity, I sent a photo of my Plain Spoken top to enter the drawing for a copy of their Color Harmony for Quilts book, and much to my delight I won one. So today, only a day after I finished the quilt, the book arrived with an inscription from the authors: "Your Plain Spoken quilt ROCKS!" Thanks to Weeks and Bill and to Jennifer at CraftSanity—I'm thrilled.

So what have we learned this time?

1. Press better, lazybones. This was the Mother's friendly admonishment. Ironing is one of my most loathed household chores, so I tried to get away with just pressing the seams from the back of the fabric. But no. I should really press from the front, too. This pattern was forgiving enough; triangles not so much. Will do better next time. A side note: I think ironing fabric added about ten bucks to my electric bill last month.
2. This big and no bigger! At 96.5 inches long, this quilt tested the limits of the Mother's free-motion machine. I probably could have done with a row or two fewer, since at this size the quilt really needs a pillow tuck. That's actually fine, because I'm not sure how it'd mesh with pillowcases, but if I expect to keep getting freebie quilting jobs from the ever-patient Mother, I'd best keep her—and her machine—happy.
3. Mitering corners takes practice. I had a breakthrough when I was sewing the back of the third binding corner. I wish I could explain what it was. I think it's too complicated to describe clearly. Nobody tells you how to get the miters to look right when you're hand-sewing the binding to the back of the quilt, and maybe that's why. I just had to pop the excess bulk on the front the other way. Does that make any sense? No, I didn't think so.

For my next trick, a quilt of my own design. That is, after making Christmas pressies, if I can restrain myself. Maybe a little of both for the Thanksgiving break?