Way back in November 2012, I made a quilt top as part of a book review. The book was Modern Designs for Classic Quilts by Kelly Biscopink and Andrea Johnson, and the pattern was a sliced 4-patch baby quilt modeled on Kelly's La Femme de la Mer Quilt. The fabric is Riley Blake's Woodland Tails, which I won in a giveaway from online fabric shop Hawthorne Threads. Soooooo after I finished the top, it sat around looking cute but never getting finished. I didn't need it for a gift, and the few times I carried it around local quilt shops looking for backing fabric, I couldn't find anything that I liked. So it continued to hang around my sewing room until a friend asked if I could make a baby quilt for her to give as a gift. Ding! Time to finish this quilt!
With renewed purpose, I took the top to a local shop and found this perfect Riley Blake stripe for the back. I've wanted to try spiral quilting for a while, and I decided this baby quilt would be good practice because it's relatively small and therefore easy to maneuver around and around and around. Starting at the center of the quilt top, I drew the beginning of the spiral and kept drawing until it was 3 or 4 inches across. Then I started stitching using the edge of my walking foot as a rough guide to continue the spiral. After the rest of the quilting was done, I went back to the center and free-motion quilted the center of the spiral using my drawn line as a guide.
With a scrappy binding and a turn in the washer and dryer, I am thrilled with how this quilt turned out. The spiral quilting was fun and turned out better than I expected. It's so crinkly and cool - I just love it and I'm glad it finally got finished and sent to a new home to be enjoyed.
