Sailing Away

It was exactly a year ago that I made a quilt for one of Mari's many nephews called "Cars, Trucks, etc.". For new nephew Rory, the theme this time is boats.  She asked for "something nautical" and colorful, with a red border.

I hunted around and found this pattern. At 60" x 60" it was too big for a baby quilt, so I reduced the number of boats and changed the size of each block from 6 x 8 to 5 x 7.

The colorful sails allowed me to dig into my stash to find just the right colors and patterns. I decided to alternate each boat's sail with a semi-solid looking batik and a bright multi-colored /patterned fabric. The hulls and masts were chosen for harmony and aesthetics. Coincidentally, the pattern also had a red border, so that made it easy to visualize the finished quilt. So I bought an identical looking polka-dot fabric on-line.  I purchased the sky and water fabrics locally.

Note the monogram on the middle boat on the bottom row.

Quilting was basic and minimal. Free-form light, puffy clouds frame the sails. Wavy blue lines fill the waters below.

I found a great all-over mini-sailboats fabric for the back. Looks like clear skies and calm seas ahead!

         

Dream Girls

The original request from my friend Mari for this quilt was for pink ballerinas. I figured that there would be tons of ballet or dancer fabrics, and there were many, but they were either not in pink or were just not cute enough. So I broadened the search to include princess fabrics, and was able to find a nice complementary pair. Thus the name: Dream Girls.

I added in some other fabrics from the same pattern set and came up with this design for the front:

Note that all of the fabrics include built-in sparkley threads!  A first for me.

The quilting is stiple around the ballerina and princess figures, and ditch stitch around the borders.

The back is made of another fabric from the princess series, and includes frogs (princes in disguise?) and unicorns, because.....why not?

Now it's up to Kalia to decide if she wants to be a ballerina or a princess...............or both! Dream on!