Thanks to your helpful comments, this weekend I hand tied and finished my latest do. Good Stitches quilt.  It's Love in Sunny Cabins, made in collaboration with the Love circle!

Since the members of my circle made these blocks with quilt-as-you-go, it was easy peasy to finish her up.  A big thanks to each member for contributing lovely blocks!

I did it!  I hand tied this quilt with... YARN!  Yippee!  After confirming that the yarn was colorfast (soak clippings in hot water in a clear glass bowl, then hold over white surface to check for bleeding) I opted for the silk/wool blend yarn.  I dug through my stash of hand sewing needles to find the biggest, strongest looking ones.  Ended up using a darning needle and a crewel needle.  The packages said 1/5 as the size, and contained a range of sizes.  I used the largest. 

It still took a fair bit of tugging to get through the quilt, but it happened, it worked, so long as I didn't try to run the needle through the seam allowance part, where the batting is 2 layers thick.  When the needle got stuck, I used a balloon as a gripper on the advice of a reader.  Thanks for sharing that great tip!

The finished quilt is 56" x 70".  It feels a heftier than normal from all that dense quilting and the home dec wait backing I used...

It's from Ikea!  I've had it in my stash for awhile, kind of saving it, but this seemed to perfect to pass up.  I love the large, moody print as a backing.  It's a fun contrast to the bright and sunny front.  Also figured the dark color and tight weave will help this quilt hold up to lots of use.  Now it's off to Wrap Them in Love!

Hey, look who kept me company during the photo shoot.

Aria's decided to hand quilt around each star in her flag quilt.  The book called for the felt stars to be fused to the quilt, but we're finding that Steam-a-Seam Lite doesn't want to fuse felt for some reason.  Course, the hand quilting will be a lovely addition at any rate!

I'll leave you with Pretty.  Color, color!