Christmas Table Topper Finished

My Christmas table topper is finally completed. I blogged about it in this post - how it was my first real project and how it got set aside and how almost four years later I rediscovered it and decided to finish it.

Besides moving twice in those four years, there were a couple other reasons I didn't finish it. Although I really liked the teacher of the beginning quilting class I took in 2010, she was a member of the "points police" and made us redo any blocks that had less than perfect points. I never had to redo any of my piecing, because I spent hours making sure my points were perfect (although now I see some errors on my blocks). I am grateful to my teacher for instilling good "points ethics", but it created a kind of dread when I thought about finishing. And I was very nervous about quilting it, since the class did not include any quilting instruction. So it sat in a basket.

It wasn't until I started examining pictures on the blogs of experienced quilters that I realized my points did not have to be perfect and my quilting was going to look good to a non-quilter no matter how elementary it looked to me. The tide began to turn, and now I love every part of making a quilt.

I quilted with no plan, but I am pleased with the way it turned out. Each block has its own quilting pattern. The only thing I would do differently now would be to rearrange the blocks to help balance the two lighter blocks with the two darker blocks. It finished at 26-1/2 inches square.

Center

Simple flowers and leaves and mazes

Each block quilted with different pattern

My version of the Christian symbol of the fish on the sashing

Binding is one of Moda's Fruitcake line

I toyed with the idea of donating this to our church fall market, but I think I would rather keep it as a reminder of my first class and use it for Christmas. I am linking it to Rachel's Purge-Along and to Lily's Quilts Small Blog Meet.