Irish Road Finished

This is a quilt top that I made in August, start to finish in 2.5 days. I had just finished the summer semester of an 18-month accelerated nursing program that encompased pediatric, OB, and community nursing (PS I graduate 38 days from now). At the bar after following our last final, the entire cohort was convinced that we'd all have to retake the semester. The next week turned into lots and lots of quilting to destress. We only got 3 weeks of summer and most of mine was spent with my sewing machine.

Here is the quilt in pictures through all its stages from August until this past weekend when I finished it on Saturday. I was delinquent in blogging because I didn't have light for taking pictures, and my cell phone's camera is severely lacking (and it only works about half the time).

Here are the blocks arranged on my floor before being sewn together. 

This was after the top was fully pieced, and with the backing fabric. 

The beginning of the quilting where I show that I'm outlining each of the big areas - this is my first quilt where I'm not just doing stitch in the ditch - doesn't hurt that I purchased a new, meant for quilting machine just before starting this. 

A close of up the quilting. You can see that each large area is outlined next to the green steps, then I did a line on either side of the all the long seams. 

Here is the full quilt outside my building.

With the back flipped up - pink and green are good complements. I didn't want this to come off as too girly because of the pink, and the green was the way to do that. 

 The binding is a slightly darker green that echoes the circles on the pale green on the top with little, round starburts all over. I also top stitched the binding down when I couldn't find any hand needles. This was a first, as well, and I'm quite pleased with the result. I slowed down the maximum speed of my machine and used the walking foot, and I can see myself doing that again in the future.