Swell Quilt Finish!

It really was no exaggeration, by any means, when I said that taking photos of quilts in Germany in the fall and winter months is like waiting for the sun, moon, and stars to all come into perfect alignment before the lighting is just right. Of course everyone at some point has suffered a touch of the blues when the warm, beautiful, and care free seasons begin to fade into the colder and greyer ones, but Northern German weather is a beast all of it's own! While there are no claims of perfect celestial alignment, there was enough (and I mean just barely enough) daylight to snap a few finish photos of my long-time-in-the-making Swell quilt!

Since this quilt had grown so enormously huge, I had grown so weary in pushing through, and that technically this is only my second quilt, I decided to keep the quilting quite simple (not to mention my comfort level, or should I say lack thereof, when it comes to free motion qulting) I essentially followed the natural lines of the blocks, and quilted diagonally through the white blocks, and again through the center of the colorful pluses.

There was quite a good bit of back and forth with my husband when it came to how I would finish the back of the quilt. Since he couldn't really grasp the concept of a pieced backing, he prefered the option of a single fabric solid backing. But since I didn't want a big seam line running down the middle of the back, which he argued didn't matter because it's the back, right?, I wanted to make good use of my leftover scraps and not eat up so much of my beloved Basic Grey grunge fabric... it's much more interesting than a solid, don't you think?

Looking back, I learned a lot after having finished this quilt... after the fact there are several things that I might have opted to do differently, but despite all those little this's and that's, I'm really happy to have finished this one. So, in case you've not been along for the whole ride since I started this quilt, here are the specifics:

Quilt pattern: "Swell" from Camille Roskelley's Simply Retro book.
Started: February 2014
Fabrics: Kona Cotton white and selected fabrics from Amy Butler fabric collections: Alchemy, Cameo, Soul Blossoms, and Love.
Finished quilt size: 83 x 91 in. (210 x 230 cm)
Backing: Basic Grey grunge - aqua, Amy Butler Memoir - pacific, Kona Cotton white, various Amy Butler scraps
Thread: Aurifil cotton 50 wt white
Binding: Kona Cotton, Copen

Linking up this week as always to WIP Wednesday and Let's Bee Social.