I was so excited to make this baby quilt for a friend for many reasons but I literally had 3 weeks from start to finish to complete it before the baby shower. She is a friend that I hold close to my heart and I was determined to complete it.
I decided on the African Queen block because 1. She is having a Queen. 2. The color scheme was ideal for this design, (pink, grey, white were the colors but I thought the addition of some purple wouldn’t hurt😊). 3. This pattern can be easily modified to accommodate any preference.
The finished quilt! I love the combo of batiks. These are not all the queens! I rearranged, added, removed a number of times. I tried to spread out the skin tones and balance the colors of the dresses. I could have done that forever but knew I had to stop eventually and commit to a placement.
The quilting is an embroidery stitch, I do not have a long arm quilter. I have a Janome QCP 9400 and it has lot of stitches. Not ever row is perfectly parallel and at first I was bothered by it and thought I would remove the stitches. But the more I looked at it the more I kind of liked it, I felt it added a little charm to the quilt. Quilting this way, took a very long time but I think the end result was worth it.
Along the edge, I decided to echo the shape of the triangles. They kind of reminded me of the points of a crown.
I had intended to quilt over the dresses but ran out of time. I think it looks good without it but I may try it on another one just to see how I like it.
My biggest concern was if my friend would like it. Turns out, I had nothing to worry about, she LOVED it, 😊 She loved it some much, that she is going to use it instead of the one she bought. That makes me really happy and even more so because we reviewed the care instructions I gave her. Often people don’t understand the work and time it takes to make a quilt so I’m glad she does because she will treasure it.
Art Is Life!
