finished maple leaf rag quilt

Ok, I know that I said that I was going to be sad when I finished with this quilt.  I was sad when I finished piecing the blocks; making the fabric combinations and then seeing them come together was a lot of fun.  But putting the blocks together to make the quilt top was a bit of a pain.

My husband and kids were both sick yesterday which resulted in them all taking a 3 hour nap so I was able to get it finished up.

I am pleased with how well the points lined up (though they aren't all perfect, this quilt is so crazy they were good enough).  And I made my quilt top a little differently than the pattern described so I thought I would take a minute to explain what I did in case someone else wanted to do the same.

The pattern calls for you to foundation piece the top onto muslin triangles (if you haven't read the pattern these directions may make no sense).  I didn't have any muslin and that didn't sound like much fun so I didn't do it.  After I made all of my 120-something kite pieces, I started cutting strips for each ring of each octagon.  For the outer ring I cut eight pieces that were 1.5"x7", for the 2nd ring I cut eight pieces that were 1.5"x6", then 5", 4", 3.5", 3, and 2" for the other rings.  Then I would center them one on top of another to make a pyramid shape (does that make sense?).    

This way you only need 2 strips of 1.5"xWOF for the two outer rings.  It gives you plenty of wiggle room to trim it down to the right triangle shape.  When I had two pyramids pieced onto a kite, I used a right triangle shaped template (this is the same size as the muslin would have been) to trim it down.  It worked pretty well.

The quilt top is going to have to sit on the shelf until I get back from Utah next week.

Several people have commented asking if this helped get rid of scraps.  Yes and no.  The kites are great for using up scraps, but I did cut into yardage for some of the octagons which created more scraps.  I definitely have fewer scraps now I 'm just not sure how many fewer.  

I am considering hand quilting this one, is that crazy?  My hand quilting experience is pretty minimal, but I am backing this one with Chicopee corduroy and I think that the hand quilting would be a better fit.  Any tips?