Never Throw Anything Away

This summer I made a baby quilt for my niece which I blogged about here.  I finished quilting the second quilt top for my friend Danielle's new baby as she fell in love with the giraffes too :-).  Here is the finished top (I forgot to take a picture of the finished quilt so I will add that later when I get one):

Finished quilt top

The circles were cut using my Creative Grids Circle Savvy ruler and the pattern was Ring Toss from Swirly Girls.  The circles are cut from squares with a square of steam a seam fused to the back.  After cutting the circles, there is a 'frame' left and it seemed a shame to throw them out.  While at Hyggeligt Quilt shop in London, ON awhile ago, I saw a quilt with small squares with circles cut out of them which someone had layered onto a wallhanging.  I tried a solid black and a white background, but liked them on the white better and spent some time playing with the layout until I came up with a final design.  I have been very inspired by more modern quilting from Tall Prairie Grass Studio's blog and Jacquie Gering's book Quilting Modern.   I spent quite a bit of time quilting it with straight lines and circles and a crosshatch.  It was a lot of work to quilt the wallhanging, but it looks awesome and is hanging on the wall in my sewing room reminding me to never throw anything out :-).

playing with the layout of the circles and frames

Applique done and auditioning borders.  The Kaffe Fasset print leftover from my Bordered Diamonds quilt back won out over other prints. 

crosshatch quilting in the orange circle

straight line quilting

I used the orange Frixion marking pen to mark the quilting lines.  Kind of scary using it, but it ironed out nicely.  I have used the markers on a green print and it bleached the colour out of the print leaving a fine white line.   Any bleaching would not be noticeable with the pure white background.

I quilted it on my vintage Bernina 830 machine

The finished quilt is hanging on my sewing room wall.