At last, my Colorbrick Quilt is finished.  Don’t I look fine curled up with it on the couch?  Granted now it’s practically too warm for a throw quilt, but you don’t think I’m going to let that stop me, do you?  Nope.

You had seen the quilt top Work In Progress before, so I’ll tell you a bit about the finishing details.  The back is mostly solid natural linen with a few strips of my favorite Good Folks fabric to liven things up.  For batting, I used a thrifted army wool blanket.  It’s washable, warm and indestructible.  As such, I was able to quilt it loosely, just stitching in the linen “mortar” of the brick-inspired design.

The binding gave me the most trouble.  I wanted to use a store-bought binding, so I settled with a bright yellow from Hancocks.  It was brighter than I wanted, but I went ahead and focused on learning how to machine-apply binding.  After I sewed the last stitch, I threw the quilt on the floor to get a look and immediately hated the binding.  I removed it the next night!  Forced to make my own binding, I used some trimmings from the quilt back and it  wasn’t as hard as I feared.

I’ve used up my stash of linen, so I plan to order more for upcomming projects.  I want to give credit to Rashida Coleman-Hane who blogs at I Heart Linen and recently published I Heart Patchwork.  She’s created a fellow linen-lover.  I too love how natural linen pairs effortlessly with fun cotton prints.  It gives the look an earthy vibe, and tones down my color-loving craziness.  I just droooool over I Heart Patchwork.  It’s a beautiful book with lots of worthy projects.  I made a set of Rashida’s Patchwork Coasters awhile back.  My friends’ admiration drove us to organize a little sewing group where they are making Patchwork Coasters of their own.  So, double thanks, Rashida, for helping spread the sewing-love among my friends!

P.S.  I have more to say about sewing and lots more stitching up than I can share on this blog.  Please join me at Stitched in Color, my personal sewing blog!