QOV Finish

The Quilts of Valor project made by The Quilt Block Ladies is finally finished.

I'm pleased with the end result and learned several things by using a new (to me) quilt as you go technique.
1.  The stitch-and-flip technique to piece and quilt at the same time was quick and satisfying.
2.  The blocks that I made using the regular foot did cup somewhat compared to those made with the walking foot, but it's not noticeable in the final product.
3.  I should have checked the backs of my pieces when cutting and putting them together - I had about 6 sections where the batting was showing (1/8") and I had to do some hand darning to fix.

4.  I forgot to mention in the joining of the blocks post, that I did trim the blocks after they were joined to keep everything square.  The top stitching flattened the batting and not trimming would have created volcano-shaped bulges.

5.  The binding strips that joined the blocks helped to disguise that the diagonal strips weren't always perfectly centered or had slight variations in width (an artifact of having them sewn by 12 different people on different machines.)

6.  No matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to get the blocks absolutely lined up.

7.  The top stitching technique looks great on the front, but leaves some random looking seams on the back.  Although I'd like a "cleaner" look on the back,  it took only 2 days to join and bind 42 blocks this way, compared to 3 days for 20 squares on my yellow string quilt using the hand stitch option.

I've also been working on the handquilting for the Double Wedding Ring.  After much debate and many suggestions, I decided to add only one more round of stitching on the center.  It's about 5/8" from the other.

I really like the way that hand-stitched lines that far apart create a nice texture when they are washed.  Hopefully the bamboo batting will behave like I'm hoping (it's only my second time using it).