A Quilt for Susan

Here's another charm square quilt; this was for my wonderful sister-in-law, Susan.  It's a late Christmas gift.  While it looks Christmas-y, it's really not... she just happens to use these colors in her greatroom.

The 81 charm squares were from three different packs.  They weren't coordinating or matching packs; the colors just worked well together.  The three borders are Susan Winget fabrics, again not from the same lines as the charm packs, but working well together.

 

I did my first "orange peel" quilting on the squares themselves and quilted swirls on the gold border.

 

 

I tried my hand at quilting feathers for the first time on the outer border.  I followed a great tutorial from Natalia Bonner's book Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting.  I purposely used a variegated thread that blended in well with the green fabric.  My mama didn't raise a dummy; I knew I should camouflage my first efforts with the feathers!  Actually, though, I think they turned out pretty well for my first attempt.  (oh, and the tute for the orange peel came from the same book, but she called it Double Arcs.)

 

It will be really hard to give this one away; I have the same colors in my greatroom!