Tuesday, March 30, 2010

New quilt

I'm excited to show the quilt I finished this past weekend. It's a wonky log cabin quilt with a pieced back, self-bound with a triple row of stitching and butted corners. I hadn't really intended on making a patriotic Americana-type quilt, but it's hard to go wrong with a red, white, and blue color scheme. One of the navy fabrics has a tiny anchor pattern on it, which made me start thinking about sailboats on the Chesapeake Bay in the summer. For that reason, I'm naming this one "July Regatta."

July Regatta

The fabrics are a mishmash of remnants bought on sale at the local fabric shop, along with some shirts and a pillowcase purchased at the thrift store to repurpose as material. I wanted a light-weight quilt so I used an old flannel sheet as the batting in this one. It's all 100% cotton and despite using well-washed clothing and linens in this quilt, everything crinkled up nicely when I washed the finished quilt. The navy and white striped fabric that I used as the outside borders on the front of the quilt is seersucker, which is great for adding an "instant vintage" texture.

I'm particularly pleased with the way the back of the quilt came together.

July Regatta, reverse

Here's a view of both sides together. In this photo you can see how I quilted everything together using a diamond pattern. But don't look too closely as I probably made every mistake a novice could make on a quilt: puckered fabric, uneven stitches, etc. I even mistakenly stitched the backing fabric doubled up on itself several times, but at least that could be fixed by taking out the stitching. Thankfully many mistakes are now camouflaged through washing and drying.

July Regatta, both sides

Oscar fully approves of this one.

July Regatta & Oscar

July Regatta & sleepy Oscar

Oscar covered with July Regatta

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