Two ready for the finishing

My two bed quilt tops are finished, for better or worse. There are certainly things I might do differencly, but having them done is much better than having better ideas and bags full of quilt top pieces.
This one looks a little funny on my bed, as it is high and the quilt appears to be short because of the wood footboards on the bed. It is a reasonable length, I assure you. Normally I'd design a quilt for shams, but this pattern yielded a longer top than width ratio so I opted to make it go over the pillows.
Thanks to Ms. Paisley & Polkadots (AKA Ginger) for tipping me off to an Amish hand quilting service. I have used a machine quilter that is local to me twice and I have somewhat mixed feelings about her. Her work is decent quality, I just have not been thrilled with her creativity. Maybe she needs more guidance on patterns, etc. I think my ambivalence also is in part to my love of hand quilting. The quilt on my bed is hand quilted, and I spent 4 years finishing it! It's about another $100-200 to have it hand quilted, but it will be worth it. This blue heart quilt will be sent to be hand quilted this week. It makes me very nervous mailing away my hard work, but this service does come well recommended.

Because this quilt is scrappy, I was able to use hundreds of different fabrics. Here's one of my more unusual ones (the western wagon-pulling frogs!). I know that the recipient will get a kick out of my hidden humor.



There's also some nice Asian parasol girls, and my son's favorite - a pirate ship!
And also some more lovely Kaffe Fassett geranium leaves and Foxgloves in blue. Together, it is all very lovely, and interesting. It keeps the eye traveling from heart to heart.

Here's the Simplicity quilt. Sadly, I have not good enough light to photograph it so it does not look washed out. If I had it to do over again, I'd use a medium dusty wedgewood blue rather than the rose. But that is life -

It is completed, and for someone who does actually like pastels, it will make a nice gift. The borders are rather simple. Come to think of it, the majority of the quilt is simple - 5 charm packs sewn into 20 9-patches, then sliced into disappearing nine-patches, bordered, sashed, and voila...quilt top! Anyhow...the remaining charm squares were cut into the 2" stones I used on the border. I will have it finished with a scalloped edge, and maybe bound in the rose.
This one is going to the machine quilter I use. I plan to have her quilt a feathered heart into each square, and do some scalloped feathers around the border. That is MY plan anyhow!

I don't know if you can read the fabric or not, but there's one fabric in this set (in each color) that has words on it... "love", "family", "hope", "peace", "dance", "wish", "celebrate"...just to name a few. I just love this.

As for the rest of my week's work...
- A trip to the lake today (Oh, that doesn't count, does it!?)
- added 1st border to my round robin piece, after deliberating on this all week. It was a real challenge for me.
- bound the second of my Legacy quilts. Small details until it is completely finished.
- worked a little bit on my next ALQS mini
- And this weekend I plan to pull out my summer quilt that needs border attention! If this sounds scarry, it ought to! Here it is...