Last week I hit a bit of a quilting rut, I lost my "quilty mojo". The secret to reviving that mojo is a quick quilt finish. Nothing like good a dose of dopamine, the feel-good hormone, to stitch your spirits back together! That's right, accomplishing goals and finishing projects releases dopamine. I had a little chat with myself: "Should we start a new project, tackle one of those quilt tops gathering dust, or finally finish a smaller UFO quilt?" As you can see, the nine patch quilt from earlier this month won the debate.
The quilt blocks had been stored in the order they were to be sewn, so all I had to do was open the box and start sewing. To speed things up, the quilting was kept minimal, no overachieving here! Even without chasing a dopamine rush, I would have quilted it just the same. This 58 x 58 quilt is destined to become a cozy couch quilt or a snuggle quilt for a child. Heavy quilting isn't cuddly or cozy.
For the quilt backing, I used the remaining yardage of the Paisley Denim fabrics in my stash, scraps from the quilt top, and a blue print from Hobby Lobby to create a border and make it large enough. I adore how those quilt block scraps add a touch of quirky personality to the back of the quilt.
The binding was made from the scraps of the backing. 100% machine attached because it was quick, and I couldn't wait for the dopamine rush!
While taking this picture I was given a little extra hit of dopamine. The quilting fairies were looking out for me on this day and knew just what I needed. The label is almost perfectly centered in the quilting. How nifty is that?
Then I noticed the errors on the label, but I didn't let it rob me of my dopamine rush. This quilt is not my own unique design. The inspiration quilt for using the UFO nine patches was Cranberry Chain quilt pattern by Laundry Basket Quilts. And it's not July it's August...LOL!
A fun little quirky fact about making this quilt, at least to me, is how I named it Blue Skies. The name came to mind simply because the blue and white quilt top reminded me of a summer sky with fluffy clouds and distant blue gray storm clouds. While quilting and listening to country music on YouTube Music, the song "Blue Skies" started playing about halfway through the quilting. Call me crazy...I took it as a sign I chose the right project.
Beautiful finish, Lea Anne! I love a 9-patch quilt and your Blue Skies is just like lying on the ground on a summer afternoon, looking up at a blue sky decorated with white, puffy clouds. As for the label, LOVE the serendipity of how the quilting framed your label, and you designed it enough as far as I'm concerned. Thousands of other quilters have used 9-patch blocks in this way over the past couple hundred years; it's not like Laundry Baskets invented the idea out of nowhere. So the "design" part was the fabric combinations and quilting designs that you chose, kind of like you are the movie director and the casting director all in one and you chose the actors and the set designers and the script and then dictated how they were going to work together and what kind of quilt (movie!) they were going to create. Congrats on a lovely finish!
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