Progress on Kathi's Quilt

I have finished the next step in Kathi's quilt and it is ready for me to begin quilting! I will be hand quilting this one, but I did purchase a book recently as well as some clearance stencils on machine quilting. I enjoy hand quilting, but it is incredibly time consuming and I like to get more projects done. I also haven't tried machine quilting, so I don't even know if I'd enjoy it just as much. The advantage to hand quilting is that I can do it while watching movies and such, whereas if I were quilting on the machine I'd be staring at the quilting and machine the whole time. It is too loud to even listen to music at the same time, but it definitely seems like it would be faster. I also would like to just explore my options. I am planning on attempting some machine quilting based on the book using the practice quilt my mom made for me to practice with before Bree's quilt. It is a teeny-tiny miniature quilt. The cat likes it. It's already covered in fur and not even finished. So, I guess she has claimed it as her own already.

Last week I managed to put together the "quilt sandwich" for Kathi's quilt in order to prep it for quilting. This was my first time doing this myself, so I had to be extra careful. I picked out some really pretty fabric for the back of the quilt and picked up some pre-packaged/pre-cut baby quilt batting so I wouldn't have to do much cutting myself. In order to make the sandwich I had to have a large, flat, well-lit area to lay the back fabric down, center the batting on it, then center the quilt top on. This involved barricading my kitchen from the dogs, since they wanted to 'help.' I didn't realize how much of a pain the quilt sandwich is, since every time you realize something isn't lined up or centered you have to move it. Not easy, since all the layers want to stick together. In the end I was successful, and filled it with safety pins so that it all stays in place for quilting. 

Quilt Sandwich

Pinwheels of Safety Pins

The pretty fabric I found for the back of the quilt.

The beautiful pink thread I found for quilting the quilt. I didn't want a
'bright' pink or yellow, but something more subtle. I also didn't
want purple since I found a dark purple fabric I love
for the binding of the quilt and the back is mostly purple.