Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Raisa's Quilt

The proximate cause of my current flurry of quilting activity was two babies that arrived this spring.  New babies are of course in need of bedding, like the flowers need sunshine.

What I discovered when I waded into the workshop was that I had already finished and given away seven of the eight so-called "Quick Children's Quilts."  I improved and finished the eighth one for one of the Spring 2016 babies; I talked about that project last month.

That obviously left me with another baby to get swaddled!  Rather than start from scratch, I decided to take some outtake blocks from a full-size quilt that was (and is) still under construction, with the working name "Somewhat Crazy Quilt."  As the title suggests, this quilt will be like an old-fashioned "Crazy Quilt" in that it is made from piecing together irregular scraps of fabric.  It differs from the classic crazy quilts in that there is no fancy top-stitching involved -- I don't do fancy top-stitching -- and in that the craziness is constrained by regular square blocks, set off within a near-white lattice.  (I wrote about making the blocks for the Somewhat Crazy Quilt on the other blog in November 2014).

So, I put together 12 leftover blocks from that project, and came up with this:



I pieced together some scrap flannel for the back and a few scraps of commercial batting for the insides, then gave it a bit of free-form quilting and a quick machine binding.  Boom!

Now, the girl who got this quilt is little sister to the girl who got the "Four Dragons" quilt a few years ago.  I'm told that when the new quilt got home, big sister immediately claimed it for herself, without necessarily relinquishing title to the older quilt.  Well, that's their business to work out between themselves.  I just like knowing that they're getting used.

The Specs

Title: Raisa's Quilt 

Serial Number: 77

Dimensions: 52" x 40"
Batting: Pieced commercial batting.
Backing: Pieced scrap flannel.  
Quilting: Loose, squiggly machine-quilted grid.

Begun: May 2016 (from existing blocks).
Finished: May 22, 2016.

Intended Use/Display: Child's blanket.

Provenance: In use as intended.

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