Loft queen size quilt - finally finished, and I LOVE it

I bought the fabric for this quilt a year ago in February.  It was my first attempt at picking out all solids for a quilt.  Even with that, you can see a bit, that the grey is a marble and the light blue does have a tiny pattern on it.  The pattern is called "Loft" from Quilts Made Modern by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.    I chose the book because it had a lot of description about colors, and choosing colors, and how your choices effect the final overall look of the pattern.

Here it is, mid-July a year later.  I absolutely LOVE how it came out. It will be for our guest room and I am looking forward to someone using it!

"Loft" - my first "modern" quilt

My Aunt Tala did the quilting.  It came out AMAZING.  One of the goals for the quilt was for it not to look too "girly".  I love that the quilting matches the more modern style piecing.  Of course, if you look closely, you can see that my rows are not perfectly aligned, but overall, I'm very happy with how the alignment worked.  The rows were LONG and a few of them were hard to make line up well.

Quilting by Tala

The back I made from two of the bolts that I got when our local JoAnn moved to a new location and had super clearance prices if you took the whole bolt.  I only bought six, which I think showed tremendous restraint.

Here is a close-up of the two backing fabrics...both dots.  I love polka dots.

This quilt, although it took me well over a year to finish, has really inspired me to work more with solids.  Which do you prefer?  Solids or prints?

Fat Quarter Shop Mystery Designer BOM #10

Can you believe it?  Ten months have gone by ALREADY?  How does this happen, the time flying by like that?  It is really fun to look back at the blocks as I add each new month to the pile.  Some I remember because of what else was going on in my life at the time.  Some for what the weather was like.  Some because I screwed them up and had to un-sew or completely re-cut parts.  A really nice way to mark the passing of a year.

This month's block is by Minick and Simpson called "Sunday Drive".  It uses this fabulous red houndstooth fabric that I LOVE.

I can also very clearly notice my improvement in technique as the months go by too.  I'm happy with my points, and how everything lines up, and most of all, that after a very tiny trim, I actually have a 12.5" square!

I've already started cutting my next big project.  It's a quilt for our new guest room from Quilts Made Modern by Weeks Ringle & Bill Kerr.  My first solids quilt.  I can't wait to show you all some progress.