Friday Finish: Bachelors Walk (my first Modern Quilt design!)

A Friday Finish at long last!  I'm so delighted to share these photos of Bachelors Walk finally Quilted, Bound, Washed and Crinkled!

I was a little nervous sticking it in the washing machine so I threw in three colour catchers.  Just in case!  Then a spin in the dryer, watching the timer, waiting for zero to flash, keeping my fingers crossed  that some of the pleats, I made during quilting, would shrink up and disappear into the never never.  I'm left with one small area of pleated badness but I'm living with it! 

When I asked our Thursday night sewing group how to get rid of pleats I got lots of advice from quilt more, it will come out in the wash, to rip it and redo.  Quilting densely around it helped as when the quilt did its shrinking crinkly thing it reduced the look of the one that was driving me mad.  A few did disappear completely and I'm happy to say I can move onto adding the hanging sleeve without having to go back and rip!

I don't know if you can tell but I'm thrilled to bits with this one and would like to thank all the ladies from our Thursday group for their advice and Claire in particular for helping with the design!

My original idea for this back in January when I was buying fabric was an 80" quilt made up of 4 giant blocks.  I  wanted an edge to edge design.  Well I didn't buy enough fabric and my blocks became a 40" quilt (kinda small!) so I put on a 10" border.

Explaining that I had lost the edge to edge with the border Claire suggested I extend the blue lines into the border.  Genius idea, totally makes the quilt!

Charly taking the opportunity to get my attention to throw the ball!

Thanks also to the advice from you guys on quilting the top.  I had a panicky moment of I'm going to ruin this thing but getting stuck in and the feedback really helped me move on and now its finished!

As you can tell the Irish weather is not the best today!  I hope to take better photos and write this one up as a pattern over the next few weeks.  If anyone is interested in pattern testing please let me know!

I'll be having a giveaway (first ever!) on the blog on Monday 12th May for Sew Mama Sew giveaway party so if you fancy a chance to win a fat quarter bundle of 10 pieces of low volume fabric from Westwood Acres check back here and visit Sew Mama Sew to see what other bloggers are giving away!

But for now it's happy dance time so linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts and
And as this is one of my Finish-A-Long goals to the Littlest Thistle!