Mumbo Gumbo

Finally finished! The Mumbo Gumbo quilt has left the building! I have been working on this on and off, since January and as I said before, I've had misgivings about the thing and been close to chucking it out a few times. It wasn't until I decided that this would be a great quilt for my 79 year old uncle to snuggle under next winter that I really picked up some steam- once I had a goal and a deadline - his birthday last Friday - I got busy. This girl works best under pressure! As I mentioned I struggled a bit with getting it basted to the polar fleece - more than I ever have with a quilt before, partly because the fleece seemed to have a bit of give to it, and partly because of the size. It measures 63 x 84" - room for a lot of snuggling there! Once I had managed to get it basted, the quilting went like a breeze - I just stiched in the ditch between blocks and stitched wavy lines diagonally through the blocks and that was it. Because of the size, and because it has been raining like mad here lately I haven't been able to take it outside for a photo session, I can't show the entire quilt, but you get the general idea.
Keeping to the scrappy theme, I also added a scrappy binding. I alway cut my binding strips 2 1/4" and the leftovers from each quilt are put in a jar. I pulled out all the dark green pieces from the jar and joined them, adding a piece of hot pink and one of lime green to make the length I needed. We had a belated birthday celebration for my uncle today. He has been through a lot lately; struggling to recover from hip and knee surgery, plus daily visits and a lot of worry about my aunt who was in a nursing home. Sadly she died a forthnight ago, and there has been a lot to deal with. It was really good to be able to give him something to show I care and he was moved to tears. My aunt was a seamstress so he really knows how much work goes into a thing like that. I made him a quilt years ago and he appreciated it so much that it ended up on the wall, so he got strict instructions about this one - it is meant to be used!