After a rather meh finish last week, I'm super excited to share this one with you today! On Monday, I added the last border to Fava's quilt top, and now I can get to basting and quilting and binding, woo!
This top has truly been a labor of love. From diamonds in the center, to paper pieced feather blocks that took multiple hours each, to tiny borders, to equilateral triangles, to round it all off with a bit of navy, I love the finished product, but boy, am I glad it's done.
I used Violet Craft's Waterfront Park collection, with which I am still very much smitten. (And yay for having TONS of yummy leftovers!) I also used a variety of solids, including Kona navy, and I think that's Kona Rich Red. I have no idea what the turquoise solid is, sorry. And the whites are technically two different whites, but you wouldn't have known that if I hadn't told you, would you? And I pretty much can't tell either, so I think it all fits.
Regardless of my careful measuring and math attempts, my triangle border wound up too long. UGH. This was my first time piecing triangles like this, so it's no wonder that it got complicated and messy. But I wasn't re-cutting all of those triangles again, especially since I was using my 6" x 24" ruler to do it, so I just centered the strips and let it be what it was. I doubt Baby Fava will care too much. As for the square in a square blocks, they wound up slightly too big, so the corners are chopped on all four sides. But again, it looks consistent, or dare I say, almost intentional? So that's staying too.
I'm quite in love with this one. It's definitely top five favorite quilt material, though I'm not entirely sure it will surpass my first love. The piecing, certainly, but can it shove a hot pink quilt from the number one spot? Time (or the quilting) will tell.
But now Friends, how do I quilt this bad boy? FMQ came to mind, but I'm not sure I trust my rusty skillz enough for that. And I do want to do some handquilting on this top, but how? Or go uber minimal and let the piecing do the talking?
I'm linking up today with TGIFF, hosted this week by Quokka Quilts. See you there!
Love how this turned out! Waterfront park is such a yummy fabric collection, and the solids you chose give the top wonderful depth. I'm a FMQ junkie, and I'd probably bust out different patterns for each section... echo straight line stitching around the center star panel and some pointy meander in the outer triangle border. But again, that's me. I hope you have fun and enjoy finishing this quilt!
ReplyDeleteIt is so beautiful! You can always say your square in a square blocks were supposed to be snowball blocks and then they're perfect. I'm an fmq girl, so I'd play with lots of different designs in the different sections. Whatever you decide to go with, have fun with it.
ReplyDeleteYes! I love how it turned out! I'm sure the baby won't mind it's little quirks ;) Little things like that were always my favorite thing about the quilt my grandma made for me as a baby.
ReplyDeleteAs for quilting, that's a tough question! I think some hand quilting detail would be fabulous, but time consuming for sure. I know you'll do something awesome and perfect in the end, though :)
There's always a spiral which you can do with your walking foot? It looks fancy but is really pretty easy! The hardest part is the middle but after that the areas just get bigger.
ReplyDeleteI think the top looks so great! If Fava doesn't like it, I'll have it ;)
Love it!!! You did a fantastic job. From the colors to the arrows to the layout. Bang up job missy!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Alia! I'm really really really pleased with this one! :)
DeleteI heart this one so hard. The colours, the blocks, you've balanced it all so perfectly! Quilting decisions are so hard, love some hand-quilting features but they do take up time. Maybe straight line echo quilting for your centre block??
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking of it on and off since you posted, I'm putting together a simple baby quilt for a friend at home right now and quilting is starting to sit on my mind too. I think your top sings so beautifully by itself though that you won't need the quilting to do much except not get in the way if you don't want it to! xx
I'm so far behind in reading blogs, you've probably already quilted, or had the fava! I think hand quilting quarter inch outside the equilateral triangles would like nice, and cross hatching "behind" the arrows. I love the colours in this quilt. I like hot pink too. Maybe one if your boys wouldn't care if they got a nice hot pink quilt from Mummy?!
ReplyDeleteI'm ridiculously late to reading your posts, but I LOVE this quilt. Super, super amazing. Love, love, love, love, love. I am still reading through, so I am sure I am about to stumble upon an update, but just in case, I couldn't let this pass without saying it's amazing :-)
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