POOFY quilt

In one of my two favorite quilt books* there is a gorgeous Baltimore album quilt.  While I am not interested in the elaborate applique that would be necessary to do that type of quilt, I am drawn to this quilt's color scheme of green, orange, red, and yellow.  So this quilt started with an idea for a color scheme.

Then I started playing around with simple flower-like shapes.  I decided to do a quilt using a simple block of three half square triangles put together with some rectangles.

Next I put four of them together with some white and a green center.  My original plan was to make a ton of these blocks and put them together with some sashing, but I made these too large so I decided instead to make this the focal point of an otherwise very simple design.

I made a ton of green and white half square triangles and put them together to make a border.  I also added a flower for each corner.  For the center of those flowers I was going to use red, but my backing fabric had a light blue in it and no red so I decided to use blue.  I rounded the corners by tracing around a record.

The retro looking Rewind Quilt I made a while back has taken up permanent residence on our couch and, at about 60"x60", I find it's the perfect size for couch snuggling. So I made this one about that size as well.

When I was buying the backing fabric I got so excited the print I wanted was on deep sale that I didn't even realize I was buying a super stretchy jersey-like cotton instead of a quilting cotton!

Since I had an unexpectedly soft and snuggly backing fabric, I decided not to quilt this one traditionally.  Svetlana who blogs at sotakhandmade.blogpot.com made a couple of poofy comforter-like quilts that looked so comfy I knew I would do one myself eventually.  This was the time.  (Check out her Christmas duvet by clicking here.)  Basically, you layer right sides together on top of batting and stitch around the outside leaving a hole for turning, stitch up the hole, and then quilt.  No binding required.

This was my first attempt at hand quilting!  I got some thick thread that looked like an oversized skein of embroidery floss and went for it.  I feel like I could have and maybe should have quilted this more than I did, but after a while I decided enough was enough. 

It's super comfy and is so poofy it doesn't stay folded up!

* Two of my favorite books for quilt inspiration are:  

The American Quilt:  A History of Cloth and Comfort 1750-1950 

Patchwork Souvenirs of the 1933 World's Fair