Blooming Nine-Patch: sandwiched!

Yet another post on the progress of my Blooming Nine-Patch quilt... I finished piecing the top last Saturday and sandwiched it with the batting and backing before bringing it to my LQS for show and tell and to choose quilting thread. Now I just need to quilt it, and bind it... I am going to free-motion quilt curlicues in all of the non-nine-patch blocks. I'm a bit nervous about that. I always get nervous when I free-motion quilt, but the last time I did it, for my February swap quilt, my bobbin kept jumping around or something and I ended up with a lot of bearding of the top thread on the back of the quilt. I'm hoping I can get through this one with minimal cursing.

Iris wanted in on the action, and I ended up getting this great shot. Her face is so expressive--she cracks me up. A lot. This makes me giggle. 

Here's Iris checking out the back of the quilt. I splurged--but let's face it, this whole quilt is a splurge--on some gorgeous Kaffe Fassett fabric. Oh MY. It's beautiful, and sturdy, and I'm sure was worth the $10.50 a yard it set me back. 

And not to be left out, here's Bellow taking a nap on the folded up quilt when it was waiting to go to the quilt shop. The cats both automatically think anything quilted belongs to them. While this would be a nice cat bed, I'm sure there are less expensive ways of making something like this. Of course, if I did make a bed for the cats, they wouldn't use it. They'd probably just steal something else not meant for them. 

Happy Friday! I hope to be back next week with a quilted and partially bound Blooming Nine-Patch and some sneak peeks of a finished March swap quilt. Fingers crossed I can get it all done this weekend....