Doll Quilt - Dressed to the Nines

This is the quilt I sent to Lee, my August partner on the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap.  The theme was "Dressed to the Nines" with the suggestion that the quilt should incorporate nine patches.  Well, this isn't strictly a nine patch, but almost.  Lee said she liked bright colours and modern designs, so I took the opportunity to play around with colours I don't usually use.  My daughter says it looks very 1970s, which her generation thinks of as vintage.  She doesn't know the meaning of the word, she is a mere babe.  This quilt is modern.  The 1970s are about as modern as I can manage.

I haven't done much piecing recently, so I enjoyed the change.  I had a good dig in my bag of Oakshott fabrics and pulled out twenty different fabrics for the top and binding.  I went to a sale at Oakshott's showroom near Gloucester last November, so I had quite a few gorgeous colours to choose from.   I particularly liked this salmon pink and olive green stripe, so it went into the centre square...

... and this dark blue stripe and the yellow centre worked well.

All the squares had either a stripe or a squared weave for the outer section, and all but one of the centre squares were a shot cotton...

...except for this one which is a pale blue stripe.

It was a great pleasure piecing all these beautiful fabrics, but then I came slightly unstuck with the quilting.  I used my 1949 Singer 15K for the piecing, straight line quilting and the binding, then I used the 1945 15K treadle for the free motion quilting in the border.  Both machines behaved perfectly, and I thought that the alternating horizontal and vertical parallel lines were just the ticket.

Until I got it wrong, so I had to ad lib these shapes and pretend it was all part of the plan.  It was interesting discovering that I would much rather not work with straight lines and regular patterns. They just aren't my forte. 

So all told, this quilt was a pleasure to make, and Lee likes it, so we are both happy.  

Thank you for being my partner, Lee!  

Linking up to Leah Day's blog for Free Motion Friday
and to Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and to Nina-Marie's blog Creations... Quilts, Art... Whatever for Off The Wall Friday so you can visit lots of other blogs.