Family Tree Quilt - A Finish!

I am so excited to have finally completed the Family Tree Quilt for my mother in law.  I must admit this was a very challenging quilt to do.  My sister in law and I pieced the top together, but it was my job to quilt and bind it.  I really did struggle with how to quilt it.  I just didn't want to "screw it up".  This quilt was a very big deal to our family.  My father in law passed away a year ago last May (2012) now making this family tree quilt even more precious.

For a lot of the quilting designs, I used Natalia Bonner's book, "Beginner's Guide to Free Motion Quilting", which can be purchased here.  I quilted swirls in the blue areas only because I don't have a lot of confidence with feathers just yet.  I did buy Angela Walter's Craftsy Class called "Free Motion Quilting with Feathers", but I just haven't had time to take it yet.  I was pretty happy with how the swirls turned out, but I would really like to have them build off of each other a little more like I have seen on some of the other blogs.

My favorite quilting were the tree branch parts.  I used Natalia's "flame" technique and then added "knots" to make it look more "tree-y" for lack of a better word.  My sister in law kept saying that our "tree" looked more like a bush, but how many bushes do you know have "knots" in the stems?  None I hope.  So I must admit that I really really like how this quilting made our tree more like a tree and not a bush!

In the area that represented the leaves, I quilted a meandering loops and leaves.  This was a lot of fun to do and I also really like how this turned out.  I must say I quilt much better than I draw because I did practice drawing out the designs a couple of times before I quilted them, so thank goodness for that because I was getting a little worried while I was "drawing".

All in all I am very happy with how it turned out and am so glad that it is finally finished.  I am linking up with "Sew Cute Tuesday" hosted by Janice.

Quilts Stats:

• Fabric was just some batiks that we found our our local quilt shop.  The brown we used was a Kona solid, but I don't know the exact name of it.  
• The pattern was something my sister in law and I made up.  
• Quilting was done by me on my long arm.  
• We started it towards the end of January 2013 and I finished it mid-May 2013.  
• The size is approximately 36 inches by 52 inches.  

Happy Quilting!