One lump or two?

This quilt has been successfully gifted, so it's time for the reveal. Meet Never Run Out of Coffee, which was made for my cousin and her husband who own a sailboat. They lead very busy lives and don't live aboard full time like we do, so they are often away from their boat for weeks or months at a time.

One time, my cousin opined that there was no coffee aboard, and she needed her morning cuppa. I had some fun coffee themed fabric and thought I could provide her with quilty coffee, at least! So I started stitching up big hearts using Cluck Cluck Sew's fun free pattern.

The backing is made of two different fleeces, pieced into a big sixteen patch. The fleece will dry quickly in a damp marine environment, and is light and warm. This was the first time I did extensive FMQ on fleece, and there was definitely a learning curve. The needle made a lot of chunking sounds, which took some getting used to!

The argyle fleece pattern is actually a bit fuzzy in person; that's not an out of focus photo. This is the back of one of the hearts where I used a flame-shaped FMQ motif.

Each color heart got a different motif. They are easier to see on the back because I used bobbin thread that matched the top thread. The darker threads really show against the white fleece. At first, I didn't care for that look, but it has grown on me. It's the back, it can look a little off kilter and still be just fine!

This rusty red fabric has coffee words on it, like Kona and Espresso, and the dark heart is coffee beans on a black background. I quilted a spirally square motif in the cream background for lots of texture.

Strictly speaking, I think this fabric is supposed to be swirls of chocolate, but it certainly fits the theme. Who doesn't like chocolate and coffee together? Yum.

There is only one of these golden hearts, and I outlined the pretty flowers and leaves on it. Not really related to coffee, but it blends and has nice metallic accents.

How cute is this coffee cup border print?? The red and white polka dot cup is my favorite. I actually started with this fabric and designed the entire quilt around it. I didn't want any cups to be cut in half, so I used a LOT of quilt math (and possibly some cursing) to fill in extra cream background to make the body of the quilt fit just right. I stitched a heart in the red sashing above each cup's handle, too.

Here's the back of the coffee cups where you can see the little hearts better. After I pieced the fleece backing, the edges tended to curl and make a lump, so I finished the seams between the fleece pieces by sewing the flaps back before basting the quilt sandwich. I've forgotten what that seam finishing method is called. 

The corner stones are four different coffee pots, fussy cut from a panel. The wide outer border is roasted coffee beans, and a dark brown--excuse me, dark roast--binding tops it all off.

I actually finished this quilt quite a while ago and set it aside for some reason. I wasn't really ready to give it away, even though it had been made for specific recipients. Have you ever done that? Held a quilt before gifting it? I guess it needed to live on our boat for a while.