Beaches, my most recently finished comfort quilt
 

This quilt is finally finished and off to comfort the one for whom it was made. I'm so happy with the final results, even tho it gave me fits and I had to redo it 4 times before I could get it to come out with square corners for the borders. I did a lot of outline quilting on this one. I also had fun with my free motion foot writing on some of the blocks. It says, "warm sand on my toes..." on the flip-flop block; "shells" on the purple shell block and "Beaches" on the brown dotty rectangle at the top. [ATTACH=CONFIG]337966[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]337967[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]337968[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]337969[/ATTACH]

Just in time for summer!!! Love the riot of colors!

Nicely done. Love the creative quilting. This quilt will bring a smile on an otherwise dreary day. :thumbup:

Terrific quilt!! Bright and colorful, and good job on the quilting!

Get job! I'm so glad summer is here!

I think someone and this quilt are going to have a wonderful summer; It's great!

What a wonderful gift, get job and thank you for sharing Have a Blessed day Ellen

The quilt is wonderful. I love all the colors. I am a beach fan. I wll be happy to give the quilt a loving home. What is the pattern?

Wonderful quilt with such happy colors. Great job.

Beautiful quilt. Love the bright colors.

Love it! Is the backing fleece? If so, how did you keep it from bunching up and forming "pleats" in the stitching?

You make such creative - and nice! - quilts with novelty fabrics!!

What a wonderful way to say it! This quilt is fabulous & I know it will bring both smiles & comfort to the lucky person who gets to call it their own!

Very cool. And it does look cuddly

Bright, cheery and fun! Just in time for the summer. Great colors and fabrics. Thanks for sharing.

Very cute blocks & design. :)

It came out so cute! I love the wide assortment of beach fabrics, and your quilting too.

That is adorable. I love it.

It turned out wonderful! This should bring lots of comfort to the recipient. You put a lot of time and thought into this quilt and it really shows!

very, very nice and cheery...looks like a lot of work putting it all together....I am sure the receipent will just love it

A lot of work--a beautiful quilt.

Love the colors, it will be great for a cloudy day to snuggle and read.

There's no pattern. Linda got a bunch of beach related pieces of fabric from Board members and this is the result. She did a fantastic creative job.

great theme. sure to be enjoyed

Love it!!!

Thank you for all the kind words everyone. I do have a fairly large collection of novelty fabrics and love using them in a themed comfort quilt when I can find out if the person it is for has a particular love for something or certain colors. It is so wonderful when I fall short in a certain theme to know the board is here for helping me out. And I love being able to help out others when they need something too.
I especially love coming up with my own patterns, as in this case. First I see what fabrics I have to work with, then I put them on the wall or on the bed and just start moving them around till they tell me where they belong. Once I have the general idea, I like to grab some graph paper and then do some fine tuning. This paper pattern is just my guideline and things are free to change as the quilt talks to me and tells me how it needs to go together.
You can check some of my other pictures posted for themed comfort quilts I've done. I've done birds, butterflies, pandas, horses, cars, flowers and The US Marines.

Lovely, wants one to go to the beach. Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful work!!!!

I love your quilt!! It is so bright and cheery. The quilting is fantastic too. You have a good eye and imagination.

What a wonderful quilt! I've hand embroidered the center block for a beach bag with this quote: "May you always have sand in your toes and a shell in your pocket". Now to find just the right fabric to complete the bag. Your fabrics are awesome.

It's too cute! I love it!

What a happy quilt! I'm sure the recipient will love it. Great job, and very creative.

A fun summer quilt. Great job!:thumbup:

Very pretty. It is so bright and cheery.

How cute, who ever got it will treasure it I'm sure.!!!

Awesome! Very bright and very cute! :)

That is sew beautiful. Love the everything about it.

I am so sorry I missed your comment previously MilyLily. I didn't mean to ignore you or be dismissive. I use fleece as the backing on all my quilts and have gotten pretty good at keeping it smooth I think. I spread it out flat and smooth then I hook clip clothes hangers to the edges of it to keep it taut. Next I center my top on the fleece, wrong sides together. I use safety pins for basting and place them about every 5 to 6 inches over the entire top. I pay special attention to the corners, centers and quarter edges of each block as well as the whole quilt to keep things well squared up. As a rule, I quilt one block at a time rather than an all over meander of the whole quilt. This helps me keep any stretching confined to a smaller area and I am able to catch and correct it right away. I usually do one block in the center of the quilt to start, but from there, I either work my way out, or go to the edges and work my way in. I generally do outside in if I am skimpy on backing and want to be sure I have enough at the outer edges. In that case, after doing a center block, I will next stitch the outside edge all around the quilt to be sure it's secure, then start on doing the edge blocks. I will do the center sides on each side, then the center top and bottom and work my way in to the middle. Next I will work my way from the middle back out to the edge diagonally across to the corners.
It sounds like a lot of work but it really isn't. It's just the pattern I follow automatically based on the quilt design and how the backing fits the top, etc. And I must say that I do stop and check the backing frequently to make sure things are as they should be. If they are not, I can ripit sooner rather than later. LOL

What a fun, happy quilt!
Nice job! :)

fantastic job on this quilt