Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2010

Amy's Creative Side is hosting a fantastic Blogger's Quilt Festival showcasing the many talents of our fellow quilty bloggers.  I was so inspired after looking at all the beautiful quilts that I decided to add my latest finish to the parade.

If you're interested in participating as well, Amy is accepting submission through Friday, November 5th.  All the details are here!

Our family and friends have been blessed with an abundance of babies lately!  Last count, we have 7 babies who are happily on the way or who have just been born.  As my absolute favorite gifts to give at baby showers are baby quilts, there have been a number that have left my sewing room over the past couple of months.  While I've loved them all ... this latest quilt is turning out to be my absolutely favorite!

This quilt is for a little guy who should be making his debut in just a couple of weeks.  I knew that the mommy-to-be was planning her nursery in shades of blue and brown, so I seized the opportunity to get my hands on that Pure layer cake and matching brown polka dot yardage I'd had my eye on for awhile.  I had been finishing up my Cherish quilt when I ordered the fabric online, so it wasn't until I actually had it in hand that I began to get an idea in my head of what I actually wanted to do with it.

I've really had a thing for quilts with a crisp, white background as of late, so I knew that I wanted to use my favorite white-on-white polka dot print behind some sort of a pinwheel-ish block.  After seeing all the 10" blocks laid out side-by-side in their colorways, I decided to pair up the blue/white prints and the brown/cream prints into two-tone double pinwheels.  With a little bit of chain piecing, the blocks for this quilt really flew together!!

One new-to-me technique that I used while piecing the blocks was directional seam pressing, as opposed to my normally favored method of just pressing the seams open.  I know that there is a lot of debate out there over these two methods and that there are pros and cons to both.  I've always personally just pressed my seams open because I felt like it gave me more control over precisely aligning my seams.  After having given the "other" method a shot, though, I have to say that I was very happy with the results and will probably (occasionally) use the method again.

In my mind, I had originally planned to set the blocks with white polka dot sashing and only use the brown polka dot print for the interesting squares at the corners.  Once I had all the blocks finished and laid out, the white was a bit over powering and almost made the quilt a bit feminine.  I set the blocks against the brown polka dot sashing instead and that was it - I was in love!

I've named this quilt Puppy Dog Tails, not only because "... that's what boys are made of ..." but also because when my little pups are happy, their tails wag a-mile-a-minute, kinda like pinwheels.

Luigi 

Lily

Thanks so much for stopping by on your Blogger's Quilt Festival parade!

If you're interested in making your own version of Puppy Dog Tails, please visit my etsy shop or my bigcartel shop to purchase the pattern.  Right now, it's on sale for $4.49!