Bloggers Quilt Festival: Retro Flower Quilt #405

This is my first Bloggers Quilt Festival and I have to say I am SUPER excited!!  I have decided to enter my Retro Flower quilt.  It has been a really hard quilt for me to do.  I just started to quilt in January and this bad boy was a super tricky pattern for me. You can see what I've been up to HERE.  I quilted this myself on my Pfaff home sewing machine.  He's a little guy, but he's pretty tough :)  This quilt is a very comfy lap quilt coming in at 59"x72".
I am entry #405

The fabrics for the quilt came about in a round about way.  I found a kit at a local quilt store that I just LOVED but didn't buy because it was expensive and I didn't like the pattern very much :(  One day I was in the quilt store and the AWESOME kit was on sale for 40% off.  I bought it and ran. The colors were SO fun and spectacular.  I held onto it until I decided to do the Retro Flower quilt along.  I knew the fabrics would be PERFECT!

I had originally planned to use white for the background, but just didn't like it.  I am not sure why I decided to try grey, but I am very happy with the choice :)  To me, the grey represents life and it's trials.  We have so many things that could get us down and that are SO hard!  The flowers and their cheery colors represent the happiness and joy that we have to choose to focus on in our lives.   We could be down and unhappy every day, but we can choose to see the joy and be the bright shiny colors in our lives and in the lives of others.

This weekend I went to a quilt retreat at the American Fork Presbyterian church.  They graciously allowed me to photograph my quilt in their chapel.  If it looks familiar, this is the chapel and church used in the original Footloose movie :)
I have to say finishing this quilt is a HUGE relief!

Late addition... I forgot to get a shot... or three... of the back, so I ran out Sunday morning and shot some :)

I have to say, I really love these pink birds :)

This bad boy is also linked up with Fabric Addict.  Can I get a Whoop Whoop?

WHAT A DAY!!!

What do you call a day where someone needs stitches before 8:30am?  You call that "normal" at MY house ;)
So, I am sitting in the living room, I have no recollection doing what, and I hear 2 boys screaming and crying and another boy yelling something.  I know it is my boys making all the racket, but no clue as to the issue causing such a commotion!   Before I can get out to see who is up to what they meet me wailing, I see the BLOOD!  My 6 year old is crying because his head is cut, my 8 year old is crying because there is blood coming out of his brothers head and my 11 year old is shouting, trying to find out what is going on.  Now, before you get too worried about my 6 year old's head, he is fine.  Apparently, my boys decided to hang a brick from the top of the play-scape... brilliant, hugh?  From what we can gather from traumatized little boys, it slipped out of its rope and knocked little brother on top of the head.

 It was just a bit longer than a 1/2 inch long and quit bleeding pretty quickly.

Here it is all stitched up.  Three Frankenstein stitches, just the way we like them.

He's got a nice little bald spot right on top of his head just in time for kindergarten graduation pictures! :)

Once we got back from all of that fun at the doctors office, yep, we got to cut in line at the doctors office... blood will do that for ya!... now what was I saying, oh yeah, what I did when I got home.  Well, I basted the  retro flower quilt....

 Here is the first step in making my quilt sandwich.  I lay out the batting and then smooth the top out.

 This quilt really liked to be smoothed to the batting.  It clung to it nicely :)

 Here is the quilt all basted.  I really like how it looks with all of the pins, so please excuse all of the pictures.

Here is the quilt as it is being quilted.  I was going to try some fancy designs, but it looked stupid so I went back to my old stipple standard.

Here is my quilted date.

 Here is my quilted name :)

Here is a sneak peak of the the finished, well, nearly finished quilt.  The binding is sewn on :)

I am so happy this baby is done!  My son even said, "This quilt is FINALLY done??"

The End is in SIGHT!!!

I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could...
and I did it!  The top AND the back for the Retro Flower quilt are FINIshED!!  Can I get a WHOOP WHOOP?  ...no, seriously, I want a BUNCH of WhOPP WHOOP comments ;D
So, in honor of this GREAT occasion, I have WAY too many pictures and a few comments to explain them.  Get your diet Pepsi and sit back and enjoy ;)

In order to sew everybody together correctly, I start by laying the little families out in their cute little blocks :)  The directional prints are especially important :)

Now I sew everybody into pairs in long pretty chains :)  I LOVE chain piecing.  It looks so cool.  Do you think I could decorate my living room with chain pieced fabric?

Now I have all of these cute pairs cut into their block wanting to be pieced.

After they are pressed, they are laid right sides together waiting to be sewed into a completed petal.

Look how many there are :)

Here are the pretty chains of pieced of the petal blocks.  I really am serious about decorating with these ;)  My hubby will LOVE it!

The following two pictures are of the pairs waiting to be pressed.  Oh how excited they are!

Ta Da!!!  Look how happy they are!  They are pressed and can hardly wait to be a whole quilt :)

Now for some REALLY cool magic, the quilt top is FInISHED!!  :D  I am guessing I was as excited as the fabric was to get done and forgot to take MORE weird pictures ;)

I am SO happy that this bad boy is done!  Here are some shots of the back.  I pieced two different fabrics for the back.  I LOVE the pink birds.  They make me SUPER happy!

Here is the back with the front to give a bit of scale.  The petal blocks are 6-1/2 inches.  Each flower is made up of 4 petals.

Tomorrow, this quilt is going down for good!  I am SUPER excited.  ...on a sadder note, I am totally clueless as to how to bind it, or I should say with what to bind it.  Any thoughts?