Finish-A-Long Finish

I'm happy to report that I finished another one of my goals for this quarter.
I started this quilt in March at a guild retreat.   I fell in love with this quilt design in an ad for Freespirit,  tore the page out of the magazine and waited for the right fabric.  Along came Tula Pink's Saltwater.

The pattern was easy.  It's just squares, rectangles and flying geese.  Each block finishes at 12".

 

I added a scrappy border in between a couple of rows of white sashing. This finished at 60"x75",  a bit bigger than my usual lap quilts. I may need to invest in a taller clothesline.

The quilting is straight lines within each block.  I added a diamond pattern on the inner white sashing, which is very fancy for me.

 I used the blue seashell fabric for the binding.

The back is pieced using yardage of 6 different prints.

The sun was bright this morning and the bottom fabric looks washed out in this photo. (It's light blue with little anchors.) However, the sun was also hot this morning and I didn't feel like going back out there to retake the photo.

Joyful Stitching,
jane

Something for Lucy

There's a little story behind this baby quilt.

 A couple of years ago, my son's girlfriend Jamie was a bridesmaid in her friend's wedding.  It was a summer wedding and the bridesmaids wore knee-length, strapless dresses in either a deep fuchsia pink or a bright green.
Fast forward to December 31, 2012 when my son Joe finally proposed and presented Jamie with a lovely diamond engagement ring.   Within a few hours of the proposal, her friend gave birth to a baby girl named Lucy.

Jamie asked if I could make a quilt out of the bridesmaids dresses.  The girls didn't care if I cut up the dresses since they figured they would never wear them again.  The dresses looked like silk, but I wasn't sure since the tags had been cut off.  I knew I would have to wash and dry the dresses to make sure it was suitable  for a baby.
After 12 washings, the color-catcher was still coming out deep pink.  I knew I couldn't make the quilt out of the dresses since the dye was just going to ruin any other fabrics in the quilt.

Plan B was to find fabric that matched the dresses.  I think I succeeded.  The center panel of this quilt is from a line called Gypsy Bandana.  I think the dark pink print is from the same collection.  Some of the other prints are from a Moda collection called Snap Pop.  I added some solids in there as well.

I stitched around the designs in the center panel and then just stitched-in-the-ditch on the rest of the quilt. I added the baby's name to some of the blocks.

The binding is the dark pink.  I kept the backing fairly simple since the front was very busy.

I did, however, get to use some of the dress fabric.  I made a gift bag for the quilt using one of my favorite patterns.

I used the green lining from one of the dresses for the inside of the bag.  (The green silk turned brown when I washed it.)

Joyful stitching,
jane

Linking up to