Dear Diary Quilt - Finish - REBECCA MAE DESIGNS

Hello Quilters!

It’s time to wrap up the quilt-a-long for the Dear Diary Quilt!

Big hugs and thanks go out to all who joined me on this quilt journey – I enjoyed all your emails, stories and pics! :)

I’ve got some finished quilt photos to share with you today! You might even consider it photo overload… lol but I know we quilters love us some quilty eye candy, and I don’t want to disappoint… so here we go!

Let me start by telling you I decided to go with an all-over free-motion quilt design… because that’s just how I roll. What can I say? I didn’t have time to do my usual (safe) big-stitch hand quilting and free-motion is (now) in my wheel house so, after I got the thumbs up from my new grand-baby Ivy… I went for it…

To be honest, I wish I had the skill set to do some custom quilting, and yes… I get nervous when I’m getting ready to begin, I mean, who wants to mess things up after working so hard on all the piecing!? But I didn’t let that stop me. I wanted it to be my own work from start to finish, my signature, so I did some quilt doodling – swirls, leaves, flowers, even a feather or two… and I’m so happy with the outcome.

And let’s face it… If I didn’t push myself, I would never improve!

At the start of quilting I was a bit perplexed as to what to do about all the applique. Do I quilt around it? Do I quilt over it? To be honest, I began going around it… and then I thought… this is a lot of work and I’m not perfect (after all) so, what the heck, I’m just going over it! Some of you may gasp at that thought but I’m happy with my choice, and I’m owning it! Here are some close ups for you… Don’t forget to notice the pearl cotton, I’m really (really) loving it!