More progress!

The last couple of days have been pretty productive, especially for my Solids Challenge quilt! I decided to just go with my original black binding, and figured out a design to quilt that I'm now absolutely loving, and have it more than halfway quilted! And despite not having a walking foot, it's looking pretty good so far. I'm also trying a new-to-me technique that I'm pretty sure I read on a blog somewhere out here in the blogosphere, I just can't remember where. I used painter's tape to mark my straight lines for quilting! I've been stitching on either side of the 2" tape I have and it's been great. I should have taped first, then pinned, but that's a lesson learned for next time. Some pictures!

The back with the black binding added

The black with both front and back main fabrics

Painter's tape as quilting guide

Partially quilted back

With one set of diagonal quilted lines

So you can definitely see in these pictures that there's been a little bit of pulling without a walking foot, but I figure once it's been washed, it'll be harder to see and it's not that bad. I also realized as I was taking the last picture that I put the top and back together upside-down. I meant for the pink stripe to be on the left side with the floral on the bottom and the green stripe to be on the bottom, but that's not how it got put together. Oh, well... It still looks pretty good!

Some of you may be wondering why I already have the black binding on and why it just looks like a big border. The answer is that I "self-bind" most of my quilts, bringing that extra fabric from the back to the front, folding it under, and machine stitching it down. It's a really quick method, and pretty much the only way I've finished a quilt other than turning and tying my very first one. It might be "cheating," but I don't really know another way to do it that wouldn't take me forever. And it usually looks just fine. I'll show you what I mean when it's done, and if I can, I'll add photos of the process.

So that's that! My quilt is nearly finished, and I have a whole week until my deadline! Imagine that...