Hot+Cold {a finished quilt}

I am proud to report that after 10 months of procrastination and straight up ignoring this quilt top I have another finished quilt to show you today!

The Orange Peel Quilt-A-Long originally took place from June 30 through September 8, 2014 and was hosted by none other than Jess from Quilty Habit.  You can find all of Jess's posts here.  It was a ton of fun to participate in and I met a lot of new quilting friends through the process.

I'm calling this quilt Hot+Cold because of the progression of my love-hate relationship this quilt.  I was so excited to start the quilt but when I got the blocks laid out I hated it.  Then I sewed it together and kind of liked it again, but it sat for months because I wasn't in love anymore.  Finally I picked it up, quilted and bound it, and now it's my favorite again.

This quilt was originally much bigger.  It's one of the one's I brought with me when I visited Ellie for long arm lessons and due to an accident on my part the backing for this quilt and my Sailor's take Delight quilt I had to swap them out.  This one ended up getting trimmed down in the process.  Oh well!  I'm still happy with it.

Per my original quilting plan, I went ahead with quilting phantom orange peels on the empty squares of my quilt top, as you can see in the picture below.  I really like how it completes some of the peels and makes the whole thing feel a little more balanced in my opinion.  The outer borders were quilted in a stipple which ended up being much smaller than I anticipated when I first started off.  It took a long time to do!  All Ellie could do was laugh at me as I complained about how tired my arms were! 

This quilt is the perfect lap size for me when cuddling on the couch, though my husband still complains about all of the "tiny" quilts I make.  And my older cat Martin has decided that laps are a safe place to sit when there is a quilt in them.  I didn't capture a picture of him but the other night he was curled up in my lap on his back with both legs sticking up in the air while I scratch his tummy.  He's such a doofus, all I can do is laugh at him with his tongue hanging out of his mouth!

You can find related posts here, here, here, and here,

I'm linking up with some new posts today!

Lets Bee Social and MCM

and

Linking up with Adrianne at One the Windy Side.