I haven't been sure about this particular project in the Journey 2 Nebula. I do love the design of Rock Candy, but I'm not sure about my fabric choice. I am trying to use up some of my stash and not buy fabric that I don't need, but there's so much beautiful fabric out there. The next project will be new fabric because I couldn't resist it. You'll see it later this week!

The piecing went together much quicker than I thought that it was going to. Once I had it all laid out and the sections separated, I completed it in a bit over an hour and a half. I tried to be careful not to stress the bias edges unnecessarily, but there are a couple of places that the points aren't exact (which I really noticed when quilting since I got a good look at every spot).

I finished piecing the top last Tuesday, the day the piecing video came out, but I had no clue what I would do with my backing or quilting. I didn't like not having a plan since I've had a plan for all of the other projects, so I don't think I'll jump in with Gazebo either since I already have Candy Dish planned out. I'll have to take some time in the next couple of weeks to dig through the stash and put together what I need to make it work. For the backing, I ended up settling on a solid I had leftovers of and adding in a label and a coordinating 10" square from the Arctic line that was leftover. Cut it to fit the label, and then pieced it with the solid. It used up all of the solid fabric's leftovers, so at least I'm not wasteful in using what I have.

I even pieced together my backing fabric. I've done this before and been pleased with the results, so I did it again here. If you've never done this, it's super easy. You take your two batting pieces and butt them up next to each other, not overlapping, and zigzag stitch them together. You can also use fusible, but I prefer just stitching them together. Doing this also used up all of a leftover batting piece, contributing to not being wasteful and cleaning the sewing space.

I had zero clue what I was going to do with the quilting, so I just sat down on Friday night and went for it. I ended up doing diagonal lines that crossed into a diamond pattern. I've seen some beautiful free motion quilting in the Facebook group, but instead of using these pieces to practice that, I've decided to go with what I feel comfortable with, at least so far. I'm fairly positive the next project will be straight line quilting as well. Overall, I'm happy with the way it looks. I used a light gray solid fat quarter for the binding, and I think it comes together nicely.

Details
Fabric: Arctic by Elizabeth Hartman for Robert Kaufman, unknown white, unknown gray, unknown teal (all from stash)
Thread: Aurafil, 50wt: Piecing, 2000; Quilting, 2021; Binding, 2615
Batting: 100% cotton from scraps
Pattern: Jaybird Quilts Rock Candy
Total Hours Spent: 6 hours, 20 minutes