I chose the front fabrics several months ago... and then last weekend I spent what felt like forever wandering around JoAnn's with two fabric squares in hand, trying to find something, anything that would both (a) match well with the colors already committed to for the front of the blanket, and (b) not be too dark, too navy blue based- this is for a baby! Finally found the one I used, wasn't feeling 100% about it, but it was the best I'd seen, and I ended up getting the "end of bolt" discount on it (woot woot!), since the bolt only had about 8" more than what I needed. I'm much happier with my choice after putting it all together and washing it and handling it.
I also opted to do some machine quilting on this one! Nothing too fancy, as I don't have a quilting machine, nor do I even have a walking foot, but enough that it's held together in enough key points that it should hold together. Only place that's really at risk are the points where 8 half-square triangle meet- I should have figured out something to do there, but I procrastinated until the last minute on finishing this project (Christmas happened, you know). For the quilting stitches I got clever and used a white bobbin thread for all of them, and green upper thread for the green triangles and grey thread for the grey ones. Came out looking really nice, but it was a beast trying to find all of the white thread tails on the back! I may have even clipped a straggler off right before giving this quilt away...
Please ignore the cubicle walls and company calendar in the background of the 'whole quilt' picture, the quilt went to a friend from work and she wasn't that into being photographed that day...
