X2Y4–6Z8O20(OH,F)4: More Than a Random String of Letters and Numbers

It's been an odd winter here in the sort-of midwest. December was quite warm, snow barely covered the ground, and the sun has made more than one appearance. I won't complain. I will, however, choose fabrics far more congruent with the SoCal winter where this quilt now lives. Cheery, bright, fun yellows, oranges, greens, and aquas. The aquas were a later addition, when I plopped the chosen fabrics down and they sat next to some aqua dots and looked super awesome. I like super awesome, so some additional fabrics wedged themselves into the palette.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love public libraries? I love them. Especially my local one. It has all sorts of goodies (DVDs, trashy-mystery-novels-I-would-never-spend-money-on, good contemporary fiction, magazines, etc) in addition to a decent selection of craft books. I requested Sandi Henderson's Sewing Bits and Pieces and picked it up in mid-December. To be honest, not many of the books' projects spoke to me (which is fine, since I borrowed it from the library). But I'm always on the lookout for new quilts to try, and the picnic quilt looked pretty neat.

I think this is the "correct" orientation, but I actually like the other way better. Scratch that. Yesterday I liked the other way better. Today I like this way better. Good thing it can go either way and matters not at all. Anyhow, the work of this quilt is in the set-up, in the cutting and ironing. I got out the wax paper and cardboard to make the templates and spent an evening making myself these scallop shapes. Since this is a baby quilt, not a family picnic quilt, I knew it would be smaller than the one in the book. I made 44 scallops (rather than 80) and omitted the borders. I also appliqued the scallops onto a piece of cotton to stabilize it and make it easier. It added heft, but it was worth it. I could use 3 pins instead of 12 for each scallop. And goodness knows, I prefer fewer pins.

 

As you may be able to see, the scallops get appliqued down. (Don't mind the imperfect curves. I excel at imperfection.) I was tempted to use straight-line quilting or maybe do some sort of cross-hatch sort of thing. But it's for a baby, and I wanted to make sure the scallops would stay put. Stippling accomplished that goal. And I knew as soon as I chose those teal Ta-Dots that I would use them for the binding as well.

I may be indecisive about which way I prefer the front, but I can say with certainty that I love the back. Possibly more than the front. I took the pieces I had left from cutting out the scallops (which differed in size because some of them started their life in the scrap bin and others came from yardage) and sashed them and pretty much just adore them.

Yep, definitely awesome, that back. Micah was named for both the prophet -- a champion of social justice -- and the rock. Having never had the chance to name a quilt via chemical compounds, it seemed wise to seize this opportunity. According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, the chemical formula for mica is X₂Y_4–6Z₈O₂₀(OH,F)_4.  A fine name for a quilt, no?