pennies for the finish

 along about the fall of last year, i became slightly obsessed with a certain quilt by rachel hauser of stitched in color fame: the vintage tangerine penny patch quilt. rachel kindly hosted a penny patch quilt along and despite the fact that i was trying to complete a quilt for each of my seven children for christmas, i was sucked right in. the whole christmas idea sort of got blown out of the water because of dear old penny patch. (well, practicality had something to do with it too.)

i hemmed and hawed over fabric choices, made a color diagram of rachel's original so as to pick it apart, and shopped, culled, replaced, slaved over this quilt, trying to figure out what made it tick. (here, here and here) around thanksgiving time, the top was done. and my obsession abated. penny patch languished in the more urgent christmas gift wip pile on the piano room floor.

 a few months ago i decided to get that top off the floor, so i made a pieced backing, which then also lay in the wip pile on the floor. eventually a sandwich was spray basted and i finally tackled dogwood fmq. i've already written a lot about all these steps along the way, so no need to rehash.

another few days of intense handbinding and penny patch is now finished. with only 24 hours to go til the finished link party for the quilt along at stitched in color closes, no less.

oh, yes, i am happy.
this quilt has turned out differently than i anticipated, but the process of making it has taught me a lot about color choices and fabric placement, about myself as a quilter. it helped me to grow. i'm even starting to like it again.

but right now i'm mostly just so pleased to have it finished.

special thanks to my dear friend jill for helping me with the photographs!

linking up with thursday threads at my quilt infatuation.