Rosemallow Quilt in Low Volume - An Easy EPP Quilt

I think I might be developing a little quilt finishing habit! Wouldn't that be nice? I love to finish quilts. I love to quilt them, I love the bind them. I love stitching the last stitch on the quilt top before I get to that stage. I'm just really, really terrible at making my quilt sandwich. It's my bottleneck, my downfall, my weak link. 

Recently we moved into a lovely big house that has just the spot for basting, between the sofa and the window, at the base of the three steps leading up to the kids' bedrooms. There's a bookshelf there, and a rug and floor cushion, but if I just move the cushion, roll up the rug, and give the floor a vacuum, it's ready to go! In my last house, I did all of this plus move the dining table, which was too heavy to move by myself. This is much easier. Perhaps that means there's clear skies ahead on the quilt-finishing front? 

This week, knowing that I wanted to share a finished quilt today, I set aside yesterday for making the backing, basting, and starting the quilting. I wanted to finish Rosemallow today before it got dark, so I could take photos.  I've had an interrupted few days. Kids home sick, one recovering from surgery, but I finished the basting mid afternoon and did simple, straight-line quilting yesterday evening and throughout today. I finished the binding just before the sun started to go down.

This was the first quilt I've finished in a while just because I've wanted to chip away at my quilt top pile (currently sitting at 8). I took extra note of the process this week because for so long, I've had a goal to finish a quilt top a week, and I just haven't managed it. This week I finally did two things that meant it would actually happen. I made a plan for how I would go about it, and I set aside a reasonable amount of time to get it done. 

I love making lists for my works in progress, but this stage of my quilt is usually just an afterthought at the end. "Finish quilt" is usually all the attention it gets when planning my 'to-dos'. But finishing is actually a pretty involved process! I press the quilt top, lay it on the floor, spread out yardage to design my backing, and then cut and sew that, press the backing, tape it to the floor, spread out the wadding, and then the quilt top, then pin the layers together.

Then I quilt the top, trim the layers, cut strips for binding, sew them together, press it into binding, sew it to the quilt, then fold it over and attach the other side.  There was no way I was going to manage finishing a quilt each week unless I set aside two days for it. Is that what I want? I'm not so sure. But I could definitely aim to press a quilt top or make a backing here and there so that it's not such a big job when I finally decide to jump in and finish. 

Rosemallow is such an easy EPP quilt to make, with it's lovely, simple 2-colour blocks. I loved looking over it as I was basting, and watching the texture emerge as I quilted it. It's best side is squished up and snuggled, rather than held up flat, but considering that most of my enjoyment of this quilt is sewing the blocks, or putting it on my lap, I don't mind! You can find the pattern in my Hexie Handbook, and the EPP kit in my shop. 

Tell me - do you have a leering number of quilt tops weighing you down? Or do you have an easy set up for getting the quilt layers ready to quilt?