Braided Spiral & Baby Shower quilts

Quilts! Plural! It's been a productive couple of days. First, I finished my braided spiral quilt, which I hope will someday go on Hazel's "big girl" bed. It's 60" x 80" so it's the biggest quilt I've made since my wedding quilt.

This fabric came from my mom's first cruise to Alaska in August 2008. I started it before I went on that same cruise with her in August 2009. So now in February 2011 it's done! It's machine quilted, and the lullaby Ryan and I sing to Hazel every night is quilted in the dark braid. 

I used the patterns wave chain and curvy key from Leah Day's Freemotion Quilting Project. I absolutely love that blog for inspiration for freemotion quilting!! Since a friend of mine (Thanks Erin!) introduced me to it, my machine quilting has improved tenfold. 

This is the label on the back, with the words to Hazel's lullaby. It's a song from my childhood camp, composed by some of my fellow campers.

This is the back, I pieced it as I've been piecing quite a few of my quilt backs. I just like it when the back has a little bit of a surprise. It also saves me money not buying super wide backs to make it all one piece!


My second quilt that I finished is from Hazel's baby shower last year. The shower was on February 20th, 2010 and I finished it on February 7, 2011 so under a year is pretty darn good!

 This quilt is made up of 5" charm square blocks that attendees to the shower signed and added good wishes to. Then I put them together and quilted them.

I used heart flow between the signed blocks and left turn, right turn to quilt the border.

Next up: Grandma Hazel's quilt.

If anyone who reads this pokes around on that freemotion quilting website (or just plain has input), I'd love some thoughts on how to quilt this one. It's very imprecisely pieced so I was going to cover it with an all over quilting pattern.

Thoughts anyone? Curvy quilting? Straight? Both? Shapes? I'm currently a bit stumped!

Love,

A productive quilter itching for the next project