River's quilt - Finished 2007 (45x60)

Ali was pregnant, and we were on a couples date on Whidbey Island. There was a great yarn shop, and Ali was expounding on the colors she liked, and how this was not going to be a traditional pink and frills little girl.

Of course, the frog passion brings to mind green, green, green.

When we got home, I was watching TV but got struck with an idea (zing). I spent the next hours painstakingly drafting this diagonal plaid type design. Highlighters showed how many colors I need. A trip to JoAnne's, and I think that every color I have found was a color that Ali picked up at the yarn store.

Now for the frogs. But wait, Ali is blogging, and says she hopes people don't overdo the frog thing. Well, I could do animals. I know, a different animal for each square. Ok, maybe just the big squares.

See the drafts below for the phases. First, each animal was different. Then I started looking at animal cartoons, and sketching free hand. The elephant, duck, turtel, frog, and rabbit each passed the "I can sketch it" test. Lots of photocopies later, each was in the same size range, and would fit inside one of those blocks. I traced a plastic template of each animal, and used raw-edged applique. OK, so I had already used flannel triangles, but who knew that it would fray that much.

I did remember that applique will shrink a block, so each animal was secured before piecing began. I was exacting with the cutting, and pretty clean with the sewing lines. Then came putting all those diagonal rows together. The one thing I kept not planning because "it would work itself out" was the finished size, and where to square it up. The whole thing ran 1-3 inches beyong the edge in a giant zigzag. I used a rotary cutter, and just went length by length until I was all the way around.

It still didn't feel finished, and I just didn't know what to do for the binding. Many trips to all the fabric stores, and finally, Gathering Fabric owner suggested the black and white check. I thought it would be too wild but brought it home anyway. I love how it adds to the inner border. I still used the crayon colored stripes as the ruffle, but I do agree, they wouldn't have worked as well as a binding. After everything was done (quilting included), the animals were not looking so great. I hand quilted around each to better secure them, and to bring the animal shapes to the back. Thank you Ali for letting me take it back after the shower to finish the hand quilting.