Summer Coins

I got inspired by the baby coin quilt recipe over at Moda Bakeshop at decided to try one of my own. About the same time Connecting Threads sent out a nice update about one of their new collections. The "Sip of Summer" line looked just like the kind of thing I needed to see in the depths of winter. And I had a gift certificate left over from Christmas. Clearly fate was speaking to me.

I futzed some of the original measurements to get to what I needed, but the concept is the same. Here it is all laid out on the Emergency Backup Design Wall/Primary Basting Surface/Living Room Floor. See, don't those colors just look so happy??

Plus! It gave me a chance to flex my new freemotion foot. I got lots of hairballs and lots of eyelashes but I also got some good learning points. Like, for your first quilt don't pick a design that stops and starts all over the place, you're just asking to accidentally get it knotted around your rings.

Also, and this was the important lesson: You can joke about sewing through your thumb all you want, but when you *actually* sew through your thumb? It's time to go to bed.

Here's the mostly-finished product out for a field trip on my office conference table. It's casually draped over the edge but don't let that fool you, it's nervous and just trying to look cool.

Another first, my first pieced back! I wanted to finish it off in a yellow (my favorite color) but the fabric I had was only 45". So I put in a row of strips leftover from the front. I LOVE the result. I was doing the hand part of the binding at work. One of my co-workers came around the corner and said "Oh! I saw the blanket and I thought you were asleep back here!" Hee!