ta-daaaaaaaaaa!

My doll quilt is ready and set to go out the door for the swap. All I have to do is attach the label, which will hopefully only take me a few minutes. It was hard taking a decent photo of this little number for two huge reasons: a) it has been super-over-cast all morning, which means all we're getting is a pale gray light into the apartment, and b) the quilt kinda turned into a SharPei after I washed it. Why did I wash it when it looked so good before the washing?

Exhibit A: the doll quilt before washing (please excuse the artificial lighting there):

Exhibit B: after being washed:

After I finished the binding last night, which didn't take me long at all and was, as always, a peaceful and even joyful process (as it means I am almost finished), I noticed there were a few errant cat hairs on the doll quilt. Every time I picked them off, they seemed to reappear. Then I noticed the little gray smudge right smack dab in the middle of the reverse side. And then, I saw another teeny smudge on one of the corners. Let me just say here that at this point, I had fallen in love with the quilt. After quilting this puppy, it looked so good, and I was extremely pleased with the results thus far. It was fun to quilt it and unlike any other quilting I have done to date. I felt pretty confident that my partner would love it because I knew that if I saw this on someone else's blog, I would totally love it and want it for myself. However, once I noticed these little blemishes, there was no way I could send it off without a washing or just something so that it didn't look like I had used the doll quilt to wipe down furniture or something equally awful. So I hand-washed it, pressed it to get rid of excess water and threw it in the dryer. I don't know if the dryer part was the wrong and bad element or what. All I know is that it came out of there looking a bit... wrinkly. Which is nice, on one hand, because it makes the quilt look all antiqued and special. In fact, a couple of Hillary's lovely doll quilts are oh-so-beautifully wrinkled, and I was head over heels in love with them when I saw them. Then I got a little scared because there's a fine line between wrinkled and puckered. Please don't tell me this is puckered....

It looks... puckered....


Anyway, the sad thing is that the photos really don't do the quilt, or the quilting, or even the wrinkling, any justice. I love it. I hope my partner does, too. And in case she doesn't, I am right here, right now offering a guarantee. Swap Partner, if you are not 100% satisfied with this doll quilt, please return it to me and I will make you another one as per your specific request (like, if you would rather have log cabin squares or something more contemporary and artful or just something less wrinkly). I mean it. Because I like this too much to imagine it in the bottom of a box in someone's closet.

I leave you all with the requisite see-through shot:

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, I loved this project....