Perfectly Imperfect

Note before viewing: There are no special effects or smoke-and-mirrors magic tricks going on in these pictures. That's my hubby standing on a chair with arms stretched high overhead, holding my quilt up in our back yard. He was so patient and did such a good job you can barely see his fingers! Thank you, Sweetie. I wish that breeze hadn't been blowing through, otherwise i'd have been quicker and then your arms wouldn't have felt like they were going to fall off. I'll try to be a little faster next time : )

Many of you may already know this pattern. It's called Sweet Menagerie by Roslyn Mirrington of Bloom and it's on the Moda Bake Shop. I picked this pattern because i've wanted to try to make a nine-patch for a while — either the kind you can see or the disappearing kind. This pattern looked fairly straightforward (except for the borders), and I really loved how quickly and fun-ly it went together (except for the borders)!Uh, but as a beginner, there were no detailed instructions for the backing or measurements for the binding...so i winged it. Thank goodness for Google and a few clicks later this handy, happy binding calculator turned up.
One other quite mysterious thing happened...my finished quilt size was about four inches longer and two inches wider than the instructions had outlined. Hmm, anyone care to explain what i did? Beginner quilter magic maybe? It's perfectly imperfect and I really love how it turned out!

Looking at these pictures now, I suppose i could've ironed this quilt before photographing it, but that just seemed silly. Especially because those are happiness wrinkles formed from curling up under it since last weekend when i sewed the last stitches on the binding. Remember that. Happiness wrinkles.
Not crow's feet :)