FO: Penguins and Moonglows quilt

I finished a huge quilt!  This has been in the making for several years - when winter came early and stayed, our house was cold at night and the patchwork of various summer quilts and blankets just wasn't cutting it, especially with the 60-pound dog who somehow ends up where my legs are supposed to be with all the blankets underneath him. 

The initial plan was to make something smaller, and the idea of making it bigger was so compelling and appealing that I put it aside for a couple of years. 

The pattern is based on a "jewel box" block, though the color schemes I found on the internets were different than what I ended up doing - most had lots of variation in each diamond.  I'd say it's my own pattern, but it wasn't really a pattern, just a bunch of math for blocks, then squinting one eye and figuring that it should probably be bigger and therefore needed more blocks, and then, yeah, borders. 

I started with 4-5 green and 4-5 purple fabrics, not wanting them to repeat in the same diamond, and as the plan grew, I threw in more fabrics.  

I was worried that it still wouldn't be big enough, but it finished at 77.5 x 93 (before washing), which is plenty big enough for a full-size bed, even accounting for the snuggly furball.  

I fretted for a long time, block after block, about how to quilt it.  I took it in to my office to wrestle the borders onto it, and after basting it, I decided that stitch-in-the-ditch was it. 

The back is wide fabric from Connecting Threads, and the thread is the 100% poly Connecting Threads in white, with a bit of black handquilting thread (Coats?) to sew the binding down.  Batting is the Hobbs one with wool - Tuscan something? 

Didn't get too fancy with quilting on the borders.  I missed the last really big colds, the ones where there were millions of visible stars in the sky and the bottom dropped out of the thermometer, but there may be more.  

I don't know how people regularly make quilts this big.  They're great to sleep under, but that was... whew.  

Competing with this desperate dash to finish the quilt was my yearly Mitten Fever, which so far has yielded these two:

Above is "Winterland Mittens," and below is "Swedish Fish Mittens" modified to fit a turning-7-year-old.  The turning-5-year-old is persistently demanding purple legwarmers, so that may be next on my to-do list.  

And more mittens, completed earlier as a Christmas present:

They're supposed to look so different.  Yeah. 

I should post more often!  But I probably won't.  Happy crafting!