Online Spring Quilt Festival

Amy at http://parkcitygirl.blogspot.com/2009/04/quilt-festival-spring-2009.html has organized the first on-line Blogger's Quilt Festival. We are to post a photos of our favorite quilt and tell the story behind it.

Some of you may have seen my favorite - but bear with me as we see it again. I liked this quilt so much I made TWO of them. Well, maybe not because I liked it so much - though I really do like it - but my cousin from Oregon was visiting and saw the first quilt being made and wanted one just like it. So I put mine aside and began to work on hers.

The quilt is done in only medium blue and white - with hand embroidery in the borders. . .

Each corner has the same seagull on a piling - and each is facing the correct direction so they show up as sitting on the piling when the quilt is on the bed. I used 3" nine patches for a lot of the quilt - the inner section and the checkerboard border - from an online swap I did years ago. We all made nine patches in specified colors and sent a dozen of the little blocks to each swapper. We did the blue/white colors several times and I had a huge plastic shoe box of them. I had enough to make both quilts - and still have plenty left to do another project - NO, not another seaside quilt.

Close up of the seagull - the quilting - and the binding . . .

I made the edges curvy - following the lines of the quilting - I like how it looks likes waves . . .

The quilting is by hand - with different designs all through the borders . . .

This embroidered seagul escaped from the border and is flying through the middle of the quilt . .

I drew the embroidery patterns - only a few are shown here - then used an embroidery transfer pencil to trace over them to make them into iron-on transfers. I used the designs a couple times over in the borders and spent hours and hours doing the hand embroidery. Good thing I enjoy embroidery.

And a little something different, not usually found on a beach - can you find what is odd?

When I had finished the quilt for my cousin I finally got back to finishing my quilt. When it came time to quilt it I just couldn't face hand quilting the same quilt over again, so I sent it off to Julie in Idaho and she machine quilted it for me. She used the same sort of random quilting designs like I had done in the first one - and it turned out wonderful (as always when Julie quilts). It is our summer quilt - the soft blues are so peaceful.