Quilt Re-Do

This quilt top was finished a week before Christmas.  But I wasn’t happy with the original.

That blue & red sawtooth line seemed to divide the quilt and there wasn’t enough white in that area.

So, after a little seam ripping, I am much happier with the new look. 

The top is made from a layer cake of Wee Folks.  But since I had used all the pieces already, I substituted a brown floral on white from Sew Cherry in the sawtooth row.  It blends right in.

The little gnomes and toadstools are so adorable!  The blocks are pinwheels and stars.

Now I’m not sure what to use for backing and binding.  As usual, there is nothing suitable in my stash…so I’ll need to buy something!

Daydreams Quilt aka “Spine”

I won a copy of “Sunday Morning Quilts” from Connecting Threads earlier this year.  This is my favorite quilting book ever!  I love all the quilts in the book, and especially the part where the authors give ideas to make the quilt your own—things you can do to make your quilt unique and one of a kind.

When I saw this quilt in the book, I knew I had to make it.  I tried to follow the spirit of using up scraps to make this quilt, so I used mostly 1/4 yard cuts that I had in my stash.  In fact, I ended up making so many stripes that I have enough left over to make another quilt. 

The fabric I used is called Woodland by Natalie Lymer.  The fairies and toadstools and gnome homes are just so adorable!  The finished quilt measures 61 x 73, not quite a twin, but I have to quilt this on my home machine, so that was really the biggest size I felt comfortable trying to quilt.

See, I am giving this quilt as part of a birthday gift today to a five year old neighbor.  This will mark the first time I’ve given away a quilt to anyone but a family member.  I’m not even sure my neighbors know I quilt!  I am a little nervous about giving it away because it’s not perfect.  My fmq could be a little better, and the binding is not super, but it’s probably the best I’ve ever done.  There’s not a lot of waviness and the stitching looks good.

The background is Kona aqua.  I used spray basting which I will always use in the future.  It made the basting so easy and fast and there was virtually no shifting when I quilted it.  Trying to use up my stash, I used several big pieces of leftover fabric from other projects to piece the back.  And I even used some leftover thread from other projects to do the quilting.  I wasn’t sure what color to use, so I used up two (yes 2!!!) spools of rainbow Sulky thread that would be perfect for a little girl.

The binding is a super awesome Quilter’s Candy polka dot from Connecting Threads.  The little girl who this quilt is going to loves the color green—even her bedroom is painted green.  Then a few days ago she informed me that her favorite color is now red.  Uh-oh!  There wasn’t much red in this quilt, so I knew the binding would have to be red and this polka dot fabric finished it off perfectly.  I really hope she likes it.  I haven’t washed it because I want it to look crisp and new when I give it to her.  I’ll include a couple Shout color catchers in the gift bag!

I am linking this up to Amanda Jean’s linky party celebrating everything scrappy.