Sometimes I’m not sure what to say about a quilt that I haven’t already said.
1) It’s 50”ish by 50”ish. That’s baby quilt size. I’m keeping it. (#notpregnant)
2) I bought grey minky to back this quilt. When the day came to baste it, I couldn’t bear so much grey. It was one of those bright days when you could smell that autumn was around the corner, one of those days that makes you want to RUN OUTSIDE and find a way to preserve the sunshine for the long winter ahead. Canning? Tanning? At any rate. This quilt screamed for an orange back.
3) Because the front was seamy in the extreme, and the scrappy pieced back was also seamy, I quilted it with a very minimal, simple wavy FMQ design. (I borrowed Amy’s idea for our Indian Summer Quilt.)
4) The quilt is completely made of leftovers or small bits of stash. The binding is left over from my first Washi Dress. The batting is leftover bits. (I always piece batting together with a zigzag stitch. This isn’t great for FMQ, truly, but it always worked for me when I used to handquilt.) As I wrote in this post, the blocks are made from leftovers from my x-plus quilt. Even the back was leftovers from this little Twister quilt I made, my Liberty geese quilt, and every bit of reddish orange scrap I found in my pile.
5) I took these photos (with my husband’s help) at Crane Beach in Ipswich MA. I think this beach may be my favorite in the whole world. (I love it more than Aruba.) The water may be cold, but that view from the walkway onto the beach and the roses blooming in the bluffs just scream New England to me. Speaking of storing up sunshine, Lucy and I are doing our best to make as many “beach days” as we can before it’s wool-sock-weather again. Hope you are soaking up the August sunshine too!
I love it! This quilt is on my bucket list and one of my faves from Denyse’s book. Love the idea of saving trimmed triangles for it! I am totally and shamelessly going to borrow your idea!
Beautiful job Laura. I love that first shot of it–it was worth getting a look or two! I look forward to seeing it in person.
I think the orange backing was the way to go. It gives the quilt two moods. I really like it!
Love it especially the orange backing! Great choice.
Love the orange pop in the corner and that you put it on the back. I miss the beach so much; I would soak it all up too if I were you.
Looks great! Love all those greys, and then that little pop of orange in the corner.
Laura, your new baby quilt is really very nice!! I love the orange triangles in the corner. It is great idea! 🙂 J.
Lovely quilt! I love the contrast of orange and grey. I was going to ask what beach you photographed it at, as I was suspecting Crane’s. Hope you get many more beach days before the snow sets in!
Laura, beautiful photos and of course…..it is a lovely quilt! Another finish…..can’t wait to see it at show and tell!! I am sort of liking that simple wavy line quilting. I have used it a few times myself!!
Beautiful quilt! Really love your choice to go with the orange. Also I laughed so hard at #notpregnant, I’m going to start having to using that hashtag. The older I get, the more my friends start reading into things, haha
This turned out beautifully. I love that it’s all made of scraps. Makes it that much more special.
just LOVERLY!!! truly!!! and even better because it comes from the leftover bits.
Soooo amazing! Beautiful finish! Love the pop of orange. I think I will be sure keeping all my scraps of the future X-plus quilt on my list 🙂
This looks sooo good – and I love the contrast of the backing!!
Beautiful quilt Laura and I love the backing too! There is nothing like the beach to nurture the soul. Thanks for sharing.
Beautiful! That pop of citrus on the front is just right – its one of my favorite designs from that Denyse Schmidt book. I’m super impressed that you piece your batting together. What a great way to use up those extra bits and strips 🙂
The orange HST’s in the corner make me happy.
This is fabulous!!! I’ve always wanted to make an Ocean Waves quilt, what a great way to use up all those scraps;-)
I knew i was going to love this one!! Just stunning, and i love how you used up bits and pieces from other projects!
I can’t even handle how much I love this quilt. And that it’s leftovers. Ahhhh. Love.
Love the grey front, bright back combination. And for such a sophisticated non-baby quilt, I would tend to call it a lap quilt 🙂 Great for cuddling up with on the lounge.
I am going to have 688 of those HST units after my X-plus quilt- I may just have to do this quilt too- thanks for the idea!
I can hardly believe that this quilt was made from leftovers! I am sew glad you went with orange for the backing. And added that touch of orange to the front corner! Clever! It looks sharp. And no, I don’t want summer to be over quite yet. My kids go back to school in exactly a week. And I will have to cope with my loneliness by spending all my time quilting. Sigh.
I love it! The orange back is perfect! 🙂
Ahhh I love the little pops of orange and the backing! And the low volume prints! It is fabulous 🙂
What a beautiful quilt, Laura. It is amazing how lovely scraps can look, and I do think the orange back was the perfect choice!
🙂 Kelly
I think the bottled sunshine is brilliant! i’d keep it too, baby or no. =) it’s cozy in all that grey and warm with the oranges. love!
Wow and wow and wow.
This is so great, I love that you put color on the back. funny I just looked up your post on the extras so that I could make HSTs out of the cut-offs from Tennessee Road Blocks. They are going to be tiny, but cute! Thank you again for the inspiration!
Totally gorgeous, can’t believe this came from scraps…you have just reinforced my need to save every single last scrap of fabric I can! Definitely a good idea to go with the orange..grey’s good, but sometimes you need a bit of a lift too 🙂
Love this quilt!!!