Ready For Quilting: Brown Bag Quilt Project Quilt Top Finished

My first finish for 2011 happens to be my brown bag quilt project quilt top. I am sure most have read on my blog about my participation in this project. I finished the top and the back this weekend. In-case you don't remember the rules, they were simple. Exchange 2 yards of fabric with your swap partner, something you considered "ugly" and construct a quilt using 90% of the fabrics sent. Tada......I finished mine! (Click on pictures to make them bigger to get a closer look)

Here is the finished quilt top. We were to use the fabrics sent, and any amount from out stash with only buying one fabric to add to the quilt. I finally decided to pull out the scraps of batiks I had and a few other pieces that blended with the fabrics sent. I had no idea really what I was doing......seriously.

The one fabric I purchased was the large outer border fabric. I will be using the same fabric for the binding as well. The small gold border was part of the sent fabric, I had just enough for the small inner border. The pieced border was a complete after thought, but I needed to use up the gifted fabric, so I decided to piece the border in a similar fashion as I cut the blocks out in the quilt. I do like how that turned out. I have to say, that since I have participated in two different mystery quilts, my confidence at adding a pieced border has really gone up. I had no pattern for this pieced border, I just did my own thing, but I think it works well.

This was a really fun project. It required lots of planning and thinking about what and how to use the fabrics that I really might not have even looked at otherwise. It was a great lesson of stepping out of my comfort zone and using different types of fabrics than those that I am used to.

I am pretty pleased with the final top. I am sure it is a far cry from what Mary, my swap partner had in mind when she sent the fabric, but I hope she likes how it turned out. This is a pretty large quilt. It measures
79 1/2 X 102. I don't really ever think small when it comes to quilts, the larger the better. I don't know why that is.

Here is one more look at the outer border and the fabric I purchased. I think it goes pretty well with the busy looking quilt top.

This is the back of the quilt. I had the main fabric already in my stash, it was 5 1/2 yards, a little light than what I had originally planned, but with the two large pieced strips with it, so I think it will be fine. It really looks a little better in person than what the pictures show.

Here is a closeup of one of the pieced strips on the back. It was a good way to empty out my stash of all these fabrics and use them up in this quilt.

Here is a picture of the fabrics my swap partner sent me to use in this quilt. Some of you may remember them, but some may never have seen them.

And this is ALL that is left. If I had to guess, I used 98% of all the fabric Mary sent me and I think the finished quilt top turned out great. I am going to get this to the quilter soon, and I can not wait to get it back and get the binding on this one. I will have one more post on this project, and it will be once it is complete, I will show it once more. Thanks for following along in this journey, it has been a lot of fun. To see more wonderful quilts in the works, visit Judy at Patchwork Times.