Smooches Quilt #5

I have made a fifth Smooches quilt, and I love it so.

When my friend saw the fourth Smooches quilt I had made a few months ago, she requested one just like it for her granddaughter. Unfortunately, I couldn't replicate Smooches #4 because I no longer had enough of the mostly fat quarters I'd used. That, however, is one of the things I love about most handmade items: they cannot be exactly replicated, each one is unique.

It never gets old, seeing how a quilt comes to life. From early stages as a flimsy, 

to beginning the quilting,

Loaded sideways to allow for continuous straight lines

to finished product.

M came over one day to choose the colours from a big pile of soft mauves, greens and blues, which were the colours she'd requested. We decided on Kona Bone as the background as opposed to white to keep the palette soft.

She loved the top and bottom borders of the quilt design, and asked would I be doing those, and I said of course! What to use to pull these fabrics, all from different lines and vintages from older to new? Knowing that her daughter-in-law is not fussy about florals, I went to my yardage of prints in greens, (nope), blues (nada really here either) and mauves, looking for geometric prints, and spied the Kaffe Fassett. It definitely was soft and had all three colours plus pink... We definitely both thought it might do the trick. I only had a little over a third of a yard, but that was plenty for the two borders. Well, I love how it pulled everything together!

When it came to the quilting, I had said I could do straight lines, keeping it not fussy, but minimalist. I thought of M's DIL as similar to my Brianne, that daughter of mine who doesn't really like quilts unless they're "quilts that aren't quilty." Single lines, which I'd first planned, didn't do it for me, or the quilt, who again 'talked' to me and gave me the idea of doing double lines. There's about 1.75" between them, which, along with the Hobbs Polydown batting, keeps the quilt super-soft.

I gave M several choices for backing, and she decided upon the baby blue flannel, a Riley Blake I'd bought a few years ago for one of Cheryl's mystery quilts, which ended up getting a different backing. Not to worry; I knew I'd use it eventually. The binding was a treasure of a find:  a leftover chunk of Northcott Fabrics Stonehenge Gradations from Luminous Layers. It's absolutely perfect: soft pink with small splashes of blue here and there.

I'd sewn on a round label from this set, and sent a photo to M, telling her there were various themes in the set from ocean to world, even a fox and an octopus. When she heard there was an octopus, she requested it, so off came the round one and on went the octopus.

Outside lighting in our grey winters makes it hard to get a true colours photo. In reality, it's somewhere between this and the previous one.

It all works so well! They love it too, and said this latest one (they've bought a few from me 😊) is their new favourite!

Quilt Stats:

Size: 51.5" square
Fabric: various from stash; background is Kona Bone by Robert Kaufman

Batting: Hobbs Polydown 100% polyester

Backing: flannel - Lucky Star by Zoe Pearn for Riley Blake

Quilted: on Avril: 37 715  stitches 

Threads: pieced on my Bernina with Gütermann cotton; quilted with Essential cotton Cream

The free tutorial for Smooches is available here. Speaking of patterns, just a heads up that I plan on having a Boxing Day sale similar to my Cyber Monday sale where all patterns will be $9 or less.

This is my favourite finish of the month, linking up with Yvonne at Quilting Jet Girl. It was a hard decision since my Santa's Belly cushions were also a favourite.