Ali makes her first big quilt: Part One (loulouthi tiles)

So I’m 95% finished with this. Why am I stuck?

1. I have a sewing machine that's great for apparel, but I can’t get that much of a queen sized quilt shoved in there, which means there's quite a bit of hand quilting to do if I want it secured together.
2. I didn’t measure well. I decided instead of a solid back I’d get all fancy and put a strip of fabric panels along the top of it so if I fold it over it will look all purdy. I was one rectangular panel short. Did I wait to put my quilt together until I fixed that problem? Of COURSE not - I mean, I'd already gotten the backing all wrinkle free on the ground and the batting was just waiting eagerly... so I basted around most of it (quilt top, batting, backing) except where I need to add that last panel on the edge by hand....so I can get back to #1 on this list.

I was following the Loulouthi Tiles quilt PDF from Stitched in Color, as I mentioned.  I needed one slightly bigger than the largest quilt, closer to a king size (hubby rolls clockwise in his sleep and it tends to rotate the covers across to his side, ya know, so I need to ensure I stay warm at night).   That meant I had to tinker with the pattern which made me a bit nervous.

I was overwhelmed by the idea of putting this together, so before I started, I got a bit crazy, and printed out to-scale pictures of the fabrics I was planning on using, and made a paper mock up of what I expected the finished project might look like. And although I skipped a couple of these fabrics, and arranged it differently, this is more or less how it's turning out.

not too shabby for paper!

I actually had a lot of fun making the paper template. It hasn't been quite as much fun putting the actual quilt together ;)  Now if I can just finish it up in the next week or so I'll be a happy camper.