Quilting, Done!

Yesterday morning I pushed through and made myself finish those last three and a half motifs.  Here the quilt is laid out for an in-progress beauty shot:

And flipped over to the back to make sure I hadn't accidentally skipped any motifs:

I mostly did white bobbin thread so that the stitching in the open white areas would be unsullied, but I quite like the way it shows on the backing:

And I trimmed away the excess backing and batting, pressed the binding, then stitched it on.  I had cut the binding along the length of the fabric, not the width, so I didn't have to do my usual little tug when joining the two ends, as the warp of a fabric has much less give than the weft.

And, finally, I dug through the shoebox of thread that I'm trying to use up, found a good color match, and started stitching the binding down.  I take a double stitch every tenth stitch or so, so that (a) if the thread snaps not as much will come undone, and (b) I don't end up pulling the thread too tight.  I actually measured, and my usual length of thread apparently gets me about 28" of binding sewn down.

I did three lengths of thread yesterday, and got one of the long sides stitched down.  Hooray!  Today, amid laundry and cleaning, etcetera, hopefully I'll get some more done.

(I also dug out that multi-gallon bag of sea-colored fabrics, as March is going to be teal for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge....)