dragonfly quilt complete

the dragonfly quilt is finally finished!
i spent a fair amount of time the past week doing the finishing stitching - both by machine and by hand and i'm so pleased with how it turned out. allow me to share some pictures with you.
i decided to outline the paper pieced dragonfly squares to set them off a bit.


here's the initials piece in context:


marty and i designed a stitching pattern for the middle based on the thunderbolt design of payton's home and the colors of the four directions. i initially did this by machine, but took it out in favor of hand stitching.


here's some of the stippling stitching i did with the free-motion darning foot on my bernette - very fun, it makes the dragonflies pop out in a nice puffy way.


as per marty's suggestion, some of the dragonflies and other bugs got little bee-line trails stitched behind them.
other blocks got outlines inside them.


even the back looks exciting. you can really see the stitching that i did in darker colors to match the quilt top.


here's the bias binding, stitched by hand on the back side, of course.


i was convinced to sign this quilt, something i've never done in previous quilts, but it seemed like a nice idea.


i made two quilted potholders for payton's mama as well.


the quilt and potholders got packaged up and sent out today - hope they like them!