Aqua pop quilt {WIP 1 of 12}

 This quilt is finally done! I've been working on it for a while and joining AJ's 12WIPSin2012 challenge gave me the motivation I needed to finish it off. The quilt (and matching bunting) is my January WIP in the challenge and it feels great to have it finished by the 7th of the month!

 For Christmas Matilda asked for a "rainbow rug that is round". As it turns out that was quite a hard shopping challenge, but thanks to Etsy I was able to fulfill her wish. Now that she has her quilt and bunting in place too it feels like her room has had a little makeover.  

 I've discovered that if I get my girls to stand on the front fence then I can display the quilts nicely for a photograph. But only if its not too windy.

 The original plan for the back of this quilt was to use the blue fabric and add in some some scraps from the front for a bit of interest. However Matilda spotted the pink Chinese girl fabric and requested that instead. I now have 5-odd yards of the blue fabric waiting for another project. Fortunately it's unisex and pretty plain!

 The quilting has a nice wrinkled look about it.

 I chose a free motion fan design- well I say 'fan design' very loosely, as it really is a love heart underneath a rainbow. I have a love hate relationship with the quilting. Basically it looks terrible up close; really messy. It's so messy I cant even call it 'wonky'. It's just a bad quilt job. I think could have done a better job if I had tried this design on a mini-quilt. I found it really difficult to execute this design on a single bed size quilt using a standard sewing machine. I should have stuck with straight line stitching or a meander/stipple.

 I tried to be really neat on the dark fabrics as the quilting would really stand out... so I am happy to show you a closeup of the dark fabrics! At the top of the quilt I had about 2 or 3 inches of space left and rather than try and do half 'fans' I wrote Matilda a message into the quilt using free motion stitching. I said something along the lines of "Made for Matilda with love and kisses by her Mum". Does that count as my first ever quilt label?

 I also made some bunting for Matilda's room.  I used a panel sold by Riley Blake from their 'Delighted' range. The 'Delighted' Bunting panel has the triangle pennants printed directly onto the fabrc, and its a simple case of cutting out the triangles and sewing them up into bunting. I embellished the pennants using ribbons, rosettes and buttons using this tutorial for inspiration.

 I intended to string the pennants onto the same fabric that I used to bind the Aqua Pop quilt, but it just didn't look right. Instead I used a black and white stripe from the same fabric range. I like the contrast of the shabby/pretty bunting flags with the sharp black and white stripes.

Matilda is very happy with her new room.