Summer Sun, Spring Splash

The Summer Sun, Spring Splash baby quilt has been quilted.

I ran across this pattern on another blog which linked back to the original pattern which was designed by Shelby Morris. I changed the name of my quilt to Summer Sun since I was making my quilt in the summer.

My quilt measures 40" square. I quilted her using Isacord polyester thread. This is the same thread I used to quilt the sky on the tractor quilt I made a grandson several years ago.

The quilting was completed with my sewing machine. I wanted the center star to be the focus of the quilt so I chose X quilting for the center. The lines are 1/2" apart. After that was completed, I stitched in the ditch around the center square.

Next was the checkerboard border. I had decided I was going to be brave and adventurous and do orange peel quilting on these blocks.

This was my first attempt at this design, I've always stuck with easy and simple before. Some of the orange peel blocks look pretty good, but some of them don't. If I were a perfectionist, which I'm not, I would unstitch those not so perfect curves and resew them. Fortunately I'm not a perfectionist, I'm more of a finished is better than perfect sort of person.

The above picture shows the true color of the yellow. When I take pictures of this fabric outside, it looks lighter colored and washed out.

I did see improvement in my stitching as I went along. I don't know how soon I'll quilt more orange peels but at least I was brave and tried them.

For the outside border I went with simple straight lines. I always like the simple design they make when the lines cross in the corners. I did take a picture of the corners from the front but it turned out blurry. You can kind of see the corners in the photo below.

I used the leftover fabrics on the back, the blue I've had for, oh, maybe, 15 years! The 9 patches on the back are from the leftover strips from the checkerboard border.

This was a fun, fairly fast little quilt to make. I recommend using this pattern for a small baby quilt or a wall hanging which was what the pattern shows. 

However I can see piecing several of stars for the center of a larger quilt.

Linking to Needle & Thread Thursday, Let's Make Baby Quilts, Peacock Party, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF!, Brag About Your Beauties, Finished Or Not Friday, Oh Scrap