WIP Wednesday: I did it!

Some of you may recall from a couple Wednesdays ago that I really wanted to get the quilting finished up on my Big S dragon quilt before Thanksgiving.  In the interim, I got sick, got distracted, and got busy, but I'm so excited to say that I actually did finish it!

The last few days I've been madly quilting whenever I have had a free minute, and last night after packing to go away for the holiday I finished up the last section. It's been sort of crazy, so I didn't have time to get final pictures, this is one I snapped quickly a few days ago.  Hopefully next week I can share some more.

Even though the quilting is finished there are still several things left to finish this quilt up.

1. Do something with the dragon's head.  Right now the head isn't quilted and has no facial features.  At the very least he needs an eye and maybe some fun embroidery.  Any ideas blog friends?

2. Soak to remove quilting guidelines and water soluble thread.  I'm sort of scared about this because I know I have at least one really dark navy fabric that will bleed all over everything, and has in fact already bled on some bright yellow next to it, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this step.

3.  Square up and block.  I blocked some before quilting but need to do it again since it's gotten a little wonky.

4. Bind/label.  I'm still not sure whether I'm going to do a faced binding or a traditional binding with piping.  What do you guys think? Color ideas for the binding?

We're leaving in just a couple of hours to go visit my family in New Mexico.  I'm super excited as there will be hiking with the dogs and Christmas tree hunting in the mountains, and hopefully quite a bit of time on my mom's longarm working on a project I haven't even shown you guys yet! (It was number 1 on my tackling the UFOs post from way back in early summer!)

I hope whatever your Thanksgiving plans are they involve spending time with people that you care about.  I'm so grateful for all my supportive family and friends and hope you all have a great holiday!