One of my repeat clients likes to give me pieces that are a little different. The first one I quilted before she had added the appliqué pieces. Unusual, but easy enough.
This piece is even better. It is a memory quilt made from baby girl clothing. So much of it is ruffly, on purpose, and there are a lots of 3-d elements. It is adorable. I almost want to rifle through my closets and see if I have any baby boy clothing left to play with, but I didn’t keep much, and none of it was this cute.
Anyway. Back to Mary’s quilt. I did mostly a loopy meander over the top, playing with the focal fabrics when they spoke to me. It is easy enough if you are hand guiding your machine to avoid the obstacles. I participate in a longarm group on facebook, and I regularly see professionals advising newbies to avoid complicated projects like this one. I’m not sure why. It isn’t actually difficult, you just have to pay attention. You can’t do a pantograph from the back, but otherwise it isn’t hard at all.
The first obstacle is this big ruffle at the top. I just flipped it up, quilted under it, and went on down the quilt.
Lots of the blocks have elements like this. There is a little skirt on a girl,
a bow on a dog collar,
and lots of pockets. I left all of the pockets open. I can imagine little prizes hiding in them for some lucky little girl.
I love this little boat – it needed some waves, so I tried to smooth the bunchiness under it down a bit.
I only did loops above this bow. There are too many pleats below it.
I was happy to crack into a pink and white variegated thread for this project. I’m not even sure how it landed on my shelf. I don’t do much with pinks.
I’m usually not into the little girl pink stuff. Being a mom of boys cured me, I thought. This piece does make me consider maybe some sneaky shopping in the baby department. One of my boys has to make babies some day, right? Not any day soon, but someday.
Thanks, Mary, for letting me play with your quilt!
Sugar and Spice
What an adorable little quilt. I, like you, don’t know why so many professional longarm eras advise against these type of projects – these are where you can get creative. They take more time, but are such a joy! I suppose if you aren’t comfortable hand guiding the machine it could be intimidating. For me – I always prefer hand guiding. You did beautiful work. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks!
Soo adorable! You’re handiwork really makes the quilt sing!
Thanks so much!
What a sweet quilt and the way you handled all the details looks perfect. I especially like the suggestion of hearts in the outer border!
Hi Jennifer,
Aww, this is so darn cute! I love the ruffles and the little boat – all of the designs you shared are adorable. I’m hoping our sweet boy Dominic has a little sister soon. There are SO many cute things for girls . . . ~smile~ Roseanne
That is absolutely adorable and you did such an amazing job! Some little girl would adore that!
Such a cute project! I’m glad you were able to not just work around the ruffles and accents, but wrk to enhance them! Great quilting!
Jen, I LOVE it ! Thanks so much – you really did a fantastic job. I wasn’t sure what you would come up with for the quilting, but I was confident that what you decided would be good. You exceeded my expectations. It was certainly a challenging project from the beginning. I can’t wait to finish it up and give to the Mom.
Thanks for trusting me, Mary!
An absolutely wonderful little quilt, beautifully pieced and designed, inspired quilting.
I love that you quilted waves under the boat. Glad you took on this “challenge,” because the results look great!
Thanks, Becca! I love my job.