Finished! A collaboration, mother & son....

Update February 2016: I've recently discovered another blogger loved this quilt so much that she copied it, and in fact added some elements as well. I should note she has since gone back and given me credit for the quilt (thank you!), but I'd also like to point out that this is only the 4th quilt I ever made, and only the 1st one ever done by machine. I hope you'll forgive any imperfections in my quilt, and enjoy seeing The Original Legend of Zelda Quilt, actually designed by my then 12 year old son who specified which elements to include and where to place them (shown below with his quilt). Thank you!

Well, I did it! The quilt is quilted, bound, washed, dried and my son snuggled under it last night on the first really extra cold night of the year. Perfect timing!

snuggling in bed

I asked him for name suggestions, and without hesitation he said, "Legend of Zelda's Cat" so that will be the name. I need to message my good friend at Embroidery by Shawna and get her to whip up the label. She has done the labels for all my other finished quilts so far, and I absolutely love the work she does! Simple, yet very high quality, and exactly what I order!  Or, in the case of a typo/spelling error, she'll correct that for you! :)

all wrapped up

Because I am a fast and somewhat careless baster, the quilt came out a little saggy-baggy. Because it's for the bed, not a show, I don't care too much. I do plan to buy spray baste next time we're in the US, as I cannot stand the chore. No matter how well I smooth out the back, tape it to the floor, smooth out the batting, tape it to the floor, and pin, pin, pin the layers together, it still gets loosey-goosey when I start quilting. Or wrinkled and folded on the back. Probably it's the pins, too; I only own straight pins, and not very many, so......I definitely skimp on the basting step.

the loosey goosey, saggy baggy front
one son is not as tall as the other, so one side is lower ;)

I used a batting with scrim on the back, and did "stitch in the ditch" quilting on the front, going over every diagonal seam, both directions, as well as a zig zag stitch following the light green border (which wasn't caught much in the diagonals, whereas the inner pieced borders were).

The quilting adds texture to the back without actually showing up and being a distraction, which is lucky. The green flannel helped to hide the stitches, so that was good; flannel was a lot stretchier to work with than I imagined, but makes for an extra snuggly quilt, so that's nice.

the texture enhanced back (also saggy baggy...)
and our silly mutt looking on

Now that this one is done, it's on to the  next one. I short intermission while I attempt a "15 minutes of play" architectural challenge (assuming my chosen photo is architectural enough....more on that later) and then it'll be right on to my youngest son's quilt, a Super Mario themed quilt designed according to his suggestions. I hope to have his done (twin sized, not full!) before it stops being cold......