the quilt I sent for the swap has arrived

This is the little quilt I sent to JoAnne:

Not great lighting for the picture  
(at least it stopped raining long enough for me to take an outside picture), 
but it finished at 17 inches square; 
I used some of my favorite scraps for the four-patches, 
and reproduction shirtings for the setting squares.

Because I was late in sending it off, I added a little something extra 
- a little pincushion that I made:

I made a small block with scrap fabrics, stuffed it with cotton wadding, and put it into an individual, antique salt cellar, then made a decorative pin to go in it.
The picture, below, shows a corner of  the backing of the quilt and 
one of the corner pockets (for hanging) with labeling:

(I guess that's the only shot I got of the backing that I used.)
Finally, here's a shot that shows my hand quilting just a little better:

I haven't hand-quilted in quite a while, and though I was certainly rusty, I did enjoy the hand-stitching time.  
I was down to my last hand-quilting needle 
when I started the quilting, 
so when it bent toward the end of the quilting process, 
I had to switch out to a needle that was bigger, 
and I was worried about the hand-quilting stitches 
in the center of the quilt
looking different from the outside, lastly stitched areas.  
But, JoAnne wrote on her blog that my hand-quilting stitches were
"tiny", so I guess I shouldn't have worried. :)

I so enjoyed participating in this swap again 
(thanks, Lori for coordinating over 70 quilters and the swap!).  
I didn't realize when I first was assigned JoAnne as a swap partner
that I was already a regular reader of her blog: The Patriotic Quilter.  
If you have a minute, click over to see JoAnne's blog and see the quilt that she made to swap, too.

Happy Monday!