Opposites

I initially pulled this panel out of my stash to make a quick quilt for a new nephew I thought would be making his grand arrival in August. Turned out my new niece is scheduled to be born this week. This quilt, which I've been calling Opposites, probably would have sufficed for a little girl, but I whipped up a butterfly quilt for her using stash remnants and am holding onto this one for the next boy in the family.

The quilt back is fashioned of remnants from quilts I made for my grandkids several years ago and a quilt I made for a new nephew five years ago. I thought the quilt back needed some color to contrast with the starkness of the quilt front. I love that it's sort of an I-spy theme that might really capture a baby's and toddler's attention. The border on the top and bottom of the front and the sashing on the back is Moda Grunge to add just a bit of black pop to both sides.

After piecing the quilt back, the front was no longer big enough. I needed to add eight inches to the width of the panel. I trimmed off three inches of white on each side of the panel and incorporated leftovers from another grandchild's quilt into the piano key border on the right. I really like the visual interest the stripes provide, and if my one of my musical brother's musical daughters brings the next boy into the family, I think that piano key border makes a lovely addition to his piano-playing family. And his girls are the most likely candidates to add new miniatures members to our extended family for the next few years.

Almost forgot to mention this is my next finish in the Devoted Quilter's 100-day WIP challenge.

As I was sandwiching the layers for this quilt, I was terrified I might miss a stray thread of ball of lint that would show through beneath all that white. So far, I have not found any out-of-place threads! This is giving me a little bit more courage to work with light colors.

I decided all that negative space on the front would be perfect FMQ practice on the longarm. And boy, was I right! The dense quilting also gives the quilt such wonderful texture. I stitched my first-ever pebbles (and got better as I went but still need practice). Some of the designs I tried to draw free-hand with the longarm look pretty darn good, in my opinion, and some show how much practice I still need. I used lots of arm and shoulder movement, trying to train my body to move smoothly with the machine. I'm a little anxious now to try a whole-cloth quilt just so I can practice moving the longarm more. The longarm, which I've named Ringo, used to be so intimidating to me. Now, I long to use it again.

Linking up with Alycia Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

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