Pinwheels in the Park, finished!

Anna's beautiful baby boy was born at the very beginning of March. I'm super thrilled for her and am very excited to be able to send her this quilt that she and I decided on late last year. I finished the top in January and it has been sitting around in the meantime waiting for me to baste and quilt it. In a big flurry of productivity, I managed to baste, quilt, and bind it one evening last week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of the fabrics but one (the lighter blue print) are Denyse Schmidt prints, which Anna should appreciate since she is a quilter! One is Hope Valley and the rest are from the DS Quilts Collection at Joann's. I believe the background is Kona celery, but don't quote me. The backing is a really cuddly soft flannel dot print that I could wrap up in like every day. I can still remember standing in the enormously long line at the cutting counter with all these bolts of fabric. I was so excited to find the DS fabrics I wasn't going to pass them up! I think the colors work beautifully together for this quilt. They are a departure from my usual bold colors, but I really love the unusual muted shades she came up with for this collection.

I started out trying to quilt dense lines in each pinwheel blade, which would have looked super cool but all the turning in my machine with the tiny throat just wasn't going to work, and there was NO way I was going to bury 1001 threads. I picked out stitches and wondered what to do next. After checking out the decorative stitches on my machine I settled on this cute wavy pattern and decided to space six lines in alternating red-yellow-blue colors 2" apart, centered on each row. This way it looks a bit like the wind is whipping through the pinwheels, and the back looks pretty interesting.

I ditched my usual scrappy binding approach for a single 200-inch stretch of the Kona solid. I did use different colors for the bobbin and top thread, though, so the back has gray zigzags and the front has blue. I love the zigzag binding application. It only took me an hour from start to finish to put it on, and it turns out so sturdy I'm sure it will last through anything, even a toddler dragging it around the house! Note: to give myself some extra wiggle room because of the thicker flannel backing, I made my binding 2.75" wide instead of the normal 2.5"; it was good that I did.

The quilt finishes at just about 42" x 56", so pretty much a crib sized quilt. It's big enough to wrap a little one up in, or cover a lap, and certainly should be plenty big to throw in a stroller or take along as a play mat.

This quilt along with the little knitted cardigan will be packed up and sent to Switzerland in short order. So pleased with this finish. Welcome to the world, little one!

*In lieu of a Friday post I'm sharing this at Finish It Up Friday today at crazy mom quilts.