At last, my Colorbrick Quilt is finished. Don't I look fine curled up with it on the couch? Granted now it's practically too warm for a throw quilt, but you don't think I'm going to let that stop me, do you? Nope.

You had seen the quilt top Work In Progress before, so I'll tell you a bit about the finishing details. The back is mostly solid natural linen with a few strips of my favorite Good Folks fabric to liven things up. For batting, I used a thrifted army wool blanket. It's washable, warm and indestructible. As such, I was able to quilt it loosely, just stitching in the linen "mortar" of the brick-inspired design.

The binding gave me the most trouble. I wanted to use a store-bought binding, so I settled with a bright yellow from Hancocks. It was brighter than I wanted, but I went ahead and focused on learning how to machine-apply binding. After I sewed the last stitch, I threw the quilt on the floor to get a look and immediately hated the binding. I removed it the next night! Forced to make my own binding, I used some trimmings from the quilt back and it wasn't as hard as I feared.

I've used up my stash of linen, so I plan to order more for upcomming projects. I want to give credit to Rashida Coleman-Hane who blogs at

I Heart Linen

and recently published

I Heart Patchwork

. She's created a fellow linen-lover. I too love how natural linen pairs effortlessly with fun cotton prints. It gives the look an earthy vibe, and tones down my color-loving craziness. I just droooool over

I Heart Patchwork

. It's a beautiful book with lots of worthy projects. I made a set of Rashida's Patchwork Coasters awhile back. My friends' admiration drove us to organize a little sewing group where they are making Patchwork Coasters of their own. So, double thanks, Rashida, for helping spread the sewing-love among my friends!