Update time! I haven't finished anything, but I thought I'd let you know how the quilting is going. And as an aside, I've officially hit the 1st quartile of my weight loss goal. 28% done!

Quilting is...part awesome, part satisfying and a whole lot of exact cutting and sewing. I definitely have not hit exactness. In fact, I think it will be a miracle if I ever get near perfection. However, I am determined to make a series of potholders until I am pleased with the results enough that I would give them away to someone other than a family member. I'm going to become a potholder factory.

I took some pictures of my in-progress potholders. Tonight I finished making the binding tape (a weird process that required a tool I didn't have, which slowed me down), so hopefully in a few days I will have one finished, accidentally too small potholder (I didn't understand the seam allowance, so lost about a half inch on each side).

Here's the potholder with half of the quilted lines (front and back). My lines are not straight. But, for my first try with quilting and the walking foot on my sewing machine, it's not terrible either:

And here's the potholder with all of the lines in. That excess batting/backing has already been cut off in preparation for binding. This is the part where you can see my in-exactitude glaring at you in the face. My squares were not perfectly sewn together/not straight. And the hatching meanders across the potholder in an uncomfortable way. It's in the center of some squares...and not so much for others. The horror. Note that the edge squares are bigger - this is not a seam allowance error, this is on purpose. The binding will cover up the excess amount of square to make it look exactly correct.

So I just need a ton more practice. For a while, potholders. Then table linens. Pillows. Eventually, a real quilt. They say it takes 1000 hours to become an expert at something...just 100 potholders to go...