Cushions and Polar Bear quilt

First of all; THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU - to all of you who commented on my previous post! I'm overwhelmed! I do appreciate your lovely comments!

I've been quiet since my previous post...

You may believe I needed a rest after the marathon work on the PSQ? No, I didn't! I've been busy! My aim now is to finish the three quilt tops I've done recently. I started with the biggest one; the Polar Bear quilt - it measures approx 76 x 110 inch - I think that is a twin size quilt? It is meant to be a bedspread... We had quite nasty weather some days back, so I decided to sandwich, pin and thread baste that huge 'monster' of a quilt! :) Some of you may say I'm fussy and that thread basting is not needed - right? :) I have tried several times to quilt/FMQ without thread basting, pins only, but every time it has ended up puckers (?), which has meant unnecessary time unpicking! Grrrr! After all that annoying unpicking I have decided to take my time thread basting before quilting! The chances of puckers are less when thread basting, at least that is my experience. Usually I don't count hours when I work on a quilt, but for fun I decided to see how many hours I spent thread basting. Over two days I spent 8 hours! Now it is ready to be quilted!

I almost forgot to say I spent two days putting together the backing too. I've used leftover fabrics and blocks from the quilt top and had to add some solids and a piece of dark blue polar bear fabric I bought here - in the tropics, of all places - some years ago!

I haven't decided on thread color for the quilting, but I am going to use Superior's King Tut.... Perhaps I'll have to purchase blue for the backing....
Here's a sneakpeak of the backing...

While waiting for my decission on thread color, I've been busy making two more cushion tops. I wasn't happy with the center piece on the first one I made; the upper part of the church - the tiny light pine border - didn't fit. I've redone it so that the pine border is at the down part (how do you say it?) of the church. It looks better now, doesn't it?

Using more of the same fabrics and to use up the church border, I decided to fussy cut the churches and make them into two more cushions. I don't have more of the church border - it was printed to be used as borders or fussy cut - I believe - but I still have more of the green and red. For cushion #3 I had to use another light fabric around the center piece - birds - from the same designer.
Here's #2...

...#3...  (Ooops! Out of focus!)

How do you make a cushion top? For the top, I have added very thin polyester batting and a piece of fabric; three layers together. I thought that is the best for quilting, but I now believe the top has become a bit 'thick'...? I've thought of using cotton fabric for the backing, but perhaps.... since the top is a bit 'thick', should I use a thicker backing as well?

Now they are quilted and ready to be made into cushions, as soon as I decide on backing and buy zippers! :)

We took a trip to Port Louis the other day, take a look here.