Spotty Cat Wallhanging - Embroidering, Quilting, and Finishing!

This post will talk about embroidering on the details and quilting the wall-hanging.  I first embroidered the details such as the cat and mouse whiskers, and the french knots for the mouse eyes.  Then I embroidered the mouse tails.  The embroidery was really quite simple just following the directions.

I forgot to get a picture just after the embroidery, so in that last picture you can also see that I put together  the quilt sandwich (tape down backing, then smooth batting over, then center the quilt top on the top and add basting safety pins.).  Once this was done, I began to quilt around the applique shapes, and along the edges of all the pieces.  I did most of this quilting by hand as I found it to be easier to get nice lines around all the little pieces that way.  I used dark red thread for my quilting, with the quilting stitches going all the way through the quilt sandwich.

As I got close to finishing this project, I got so into it a forgot to take pictures after a few steps, so this next picture is actually the finished project.  Quickly, after the quilting was finished, I trimmed off the extra batting and backing nice and close to the quilt top.  Then I prepared my binding (there are some good tutorials about this).  I lined up the raw edges of the double folded binding with the edge of the quilt top and machine stitched it to the back of my quilt with a straight stitch, mitering at the corners.  Next, I carefully folded the binding over to the front and selected an overlock stitch on my sewing machine (it basically goes up 2 straight along the edge of the binding but on the quilt top, then goes over 1 to catch the binding.  I liked the way this stitch worked).  I sewed around the binding with this stitch, mitering the corners and tucking in the end.

So...FINALLLY....here is the finished quilt!!!   I actually finished this a while ago, just kept forgetting to post here.  Next project is another wall-hanging - a blazing star pattern.