Stacked Coins - Take Two

This is the second stacked coins quilt I have finished, and boy are they different from each other! This one's been finished for a few months, but I thought I'd put some pictures up.

The fabrics are some Amy Butler fabrics that I had been saving for the right project, and when I first spotted that gray solid (Kona Cotton Solids - Medium Grey) I knew I wanted to try something with a dark background.It is so different from the traditional colors and cream colored sashing on the quilt that I made for my grandparents.

Anyway, I tried a lot of new things on this quilt.... nothing too fancy, but stuff I've wanted to try out but never had the courage to take on:

1) Straight line quilting. I was sick of stitch-in-the-ditch quilting, and had always been scared of trying any other type like free motion or straight lines. I also don't have a walking foot attachment for my machine, which is supposed to make the whole process easier. I was surprised to realize that it was much easier than I thought it would be and I really enjoyed designing where to put the lines and making precise lines throughout the quilt.

2) Pieced quilt back. This is a really popular thing to do in modern quilting. I was taught to quilt by a wonderful family friend who makes lovely quilts, but they are more traditional and I hadn't been introduced to this idea until recently. Putting in a strip of the extra Amy Butler fabrics gave the back some character, and it worked well with the blue flannel I had purchased.

3) Binding with scraps. I've only used one continuous design before for all of my previous quilts. When it came to binding this quilt, I didn't have enough of a single fabric to do the whole thing, and I didn't feel like buying more, so I started doing the math to see if I could make enough binding out of my leftover Amy Butler Lotus fabric. Hooray! There was enough! Here's the best quilt binding tutorial I always refer to.

So there it is! I think it's my favorite quilt to date. I bought the fabric when Ethan was just a newborn, so I'll probably give it to him someday.... but I think I'll hold onto it for myself fo a little while :)