Tropical Sunrise - Finished just in time for Bloggers Quilt Festival!

So happy to report that Tropical Sunrise is finished!  The last of the binding was stitched down on Monday morning just prior to our quilt guild meeting, where it made its debut entrance into the world of the finished quilt.  I'm so very happy, both to have this finally completed, and also because I'm liking the way it turned out.  We've had off and on showery weather the past few days, and since I don't have anyplace to hang it outside that will accommodate its size, these photos were all taken indoors under various lighting conditions.

I machine pieced this approximately two years ago on my Singer 201A Centennial machine, and began quilting it approximately 2 1/2 months ago.   All quilting was done on my Janome Horizon, using Aurifil 50 wt. thread throughout.  For the ditch quilting I used black (color 2692) on the top.  All free motion quilting was done with a wonderful variegated yellow/gold (color 4150) as the top thread, and for the bobbin thread I chose color 2370 which blended with the back for both ditch and free motion quilting.

 I really loved how the variegated gold Aurifil 4150 played with all of the batiks, blending into the background of some and providing gorgeous contrast on others.  This is fast becoming one of my favorite go-to colors for machine quilting!

For the free motion ferns I lightly sketched in a few guide points for the stem with a Sewline ceramic lead pencil, and then quilted all the fronds freehand, trying to keep them organic in nature.

Here is a closer view of  a primary block:

And a secondary block:

And shown here on a queen size bed - sorry the lighting is not good in this room.

Stats for this quilt include:
     Pattern Source:  The Premier Fall Issue of Quilt Sampler Magazine (2004)
     Pattern Designer:  Jill Petit of Jillybean's Pride, Oakville, Ontario
     Finished size:  87-1/2 x 112 inches
     Machine pieced and machine quilted by me on my domestic sewing machines

I would love to make a smaller throw size version of this quilt sometime in the future, and may just have enough batik scraps to make one approximately 60x60 inches in size, perfect for our couch.

So happy to have this major finish to enter in the Spring 2013 Bloggers Quilt Festival in the  Home Machine Quilted category.    You can see all the quilts entered in this category by clicking here.   There are many more categories in the Festival that you can access by checking out the main Festival post here or clicking on the Festival button in the right sidebar above.  Enjoy the Festival!

This quilt is #9 in the Home Machine Quilted Category.