Denver's Birthday Quilt

I've been totally absorbed the past several days with finishing the quilt for my grandson Denver so I could give it to him at his 1st Birthday party today.  Nose to the grindstone, head down, whatever you want to call it.  

I drove to Grandville, MI, on Wednesday to 'look' at the Juki TL-2010Q sewing machine at Family Sewing.  I won't lie -- I fully expected to drive home with it and I did.  It would have been a shame to drive 2+ hours each way and come home empty handed right?  I don't have a proper picture of it yet but will post one soon.  

In the mean time here's the quilt for Denver:

I began the quilt top before I even knew what the baby's sex was because Holly & Mike didn't want people to know until after the baby shower.  I pieced the center of it at Mystery Quilt Day in 2011 but set it aside to get back to knitting for my shows.  Once I couldn't knit any more I dug out the project and cranked it out for a 1st Birthday gift instead.  I got the last of the borders on last weekend and very quickly decided I could not possibly quilt it on my existing machines.  It's not huge, 56" x 74", but bigger than the baby quilts I've been able to manage thus far.

Machine quilting has always been a chore for me, full of expletives (enough to make me close my windows and scare off my children), lots of sweat, and much anxiety.  I liked the idea of it -- I just couldn't manage the pushing and shoving of the fabric in the narrow little harps of my current sewing machines.  My Chicken friends Diane and Joyce both have Jukis so I sought out opinions from them, soon realizing it was made for me as well.

I'm very pleased at how the new quilt turned out.  I need to play around with the Juki to get a better understanding of tension adjustments but overall it was great.  I even received applause today at his birthday party from the other guests!

All of the fabrics were purchased at Guildcrafters last year except for the backing, which my Chicken friend Kathy helped me pick out and it's absolutely perfect for my truck-loving grandson.  The pattern, Just Snowballs, is from Judy Laquidara's book, Weekend Quilts.  Don't laugh -- Judy doesn't say you have to finish the quilt in a weekend!  Judy's blog, Patchwork Times, is in my blog roll on the left.  She leads a very interesting life!