Thank You Stephanie: A Finished Quilt

My elder daughter has finished her grade two school year, and as has been tradition since she started Junior Kindergarten, I made her teacher a quilt. To be honest, the way I decided on this particular colour scheme and pattern was my overflowing "cool" scraps bin. I chopped up 3.5" squares from every blue scrap that seemed appropriate (not so much with the sharks, for example). I then went through my white scraps and found a big stack of white-on-white 3.5" squares from I don't even know what project. Meant to be! They formed the middle white squares of these nine patches. The only stash (instead of scrap) I needed to use for the quilt top was some Kona White for the sashing.

I love how all the light-to-dark blues results in so much movement in the quilt.

I did a free motion meandering stipple, despite my recent FMQ practice, because I needed it to be FAST.

 To be honest, if I was redoing this quilt I would do straight line quilting to be more in line with the boxy nature of the nine patches. I used a very light blue Aurafil and it worked out pretty well (good thing, since I was out of white) but the quilting is my least favourite part of the quilt.

Despite not being pieced so well, this particular block has my favourite combination of scraps. I kind want a whole quilt in navy now!

The backing involved this slightly minty print that I've had for ages but couldn't figure out when I would ever use it (or why I bought it!), some leftover Architectures by Carolyn Friedlander from the back of my Tranquility quilt, and some other blue that I had in my scraps.

That mint print is an odd one. What was I thinking? But it worked well for this quilt!

My daughter made the label for the quilt, just as she did last year. 

The teacher absolutely LOVED the quilt. Apparently she kept calling people over to open it up and show it to them. My daughter assures me that this was because she was so excited about the quilt. She sent a lovely thank you note home. As a teacher I know that gifts are always appreciated but not always fitting for the recipient (The flying dove sculpture I received from a student one year still stands out in my mind). I hope that her teacher really does love this gift. 

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts' Finish it Up Friday!