A Lovely Finish!

I am SO excited! Four Patch & Friends is FINALLY A FLIMSY!!

Sorry to be shouting... I'll calm down now.  LOL

Unlike some of my UFOs who have kind of a fuzzy history, I have very distinct memories of Four Patch & Friends. I saw the top made up in a quilt shop on my way home from Minneapolis/St. Paul during the winter of 2002 and fell in love with it. The shop had a starter kit containing 40 floral 2.5" strips so I took a deep breath and bought it along with the book "Open a Can of Worms" by Debbie Caffrey.

I say took a deep breath because I had just taken my Beginning Quilting class in January 2002... and this didn't look anything like a beginning quilt! I remember rolling my sewing machine table out into our family room and making blocks during March Madness that year. I also remember bringing a box full of them to our family Easter gathering and proudly showing them off.

Sometime after that I imagine another shiny new project appeared and, well, you know how that goes.  A few more blocks were made here and there until I picked it up again last winter.  Earlier posts about this top are here, here, here, here and here if you want to read more about the assembly process and my challenges!

Yesterday was the day... I was determined to FINALLY make this beauty into a flimsy! It was a bright sunny day which might explain how this block caught my eye as I was finishing this seam.

The background fabric is flipped over backwards - which also happened in the last post referenced above. At least this one was on a corner edge and not in the middle of the partially assembled top like the last one! Out came Mr. Ripper and then I had to recheck all the blocks to see if I had missed any others. It just boggles my mind after all the times I've handled these blocks that I missed that (TWICE!!).                                                     

I literally pressed the last seam and ran upstairs to grab my camera because by now it was late afternoon and rain is forecasted for the next few days. So the top isn't perfectly pressed and there are lots of thread bits but guess what... it is DONE!

And, after 11+ years I still love it. So much. Maybe even more because it has been rather challenging from start to finish! I am so happy with the green inner border fabric which I had a very hard time finding. I took extra time to mark and pin the block intersections across the border because I was worried about having a wonky looking join. Not to mention to try and keep the top square (I've never done a layout like this).

This top will be mailed out for professional quilting... now I can just relax and enjoy the pictures. I've met my September ALYoF goal too which is always nice.

I'm also linking up to TGIFF@Cherry Valley Designs Blog, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop@Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Link A Finish Friday@Richard and Tanya Quilts, Needle & Thread Thursday@My Quilt Infatuation and Finish it Friday@Crazy Mom Quilts.

And... adding one more because this is my Favorite Quilt (even just as a flimsy!) so I'm linking it up at Molly Flanders Makerie with many more Favorite Quilts. You don't want to miss all the beautiful eye candy so go take a peek and link up yours while you are there!