Maritime quilt

I can't believe I'm posting two versions of this quilt pattern in a row - just in case it wasn't already obvious how much I love this pattern!  This version was made for the new daughter of a good friend of mine.  They live by the sea so I thought including the Charley Harper maritime print in the middle was a nice touch, and I knew she'd like the design too (my friend that is, not the new baby, well I mean I'm sure the baby will too!).

The Charley Harper fabric was leftover from another quilt backing and luckily it was enough to do the middle row of arrows.  I think it works really well with the Kona Cotton in 'Curry'.  I didn't have enough of the Kona Curry left so I went back to Village Haberdashery to get more but they were out of stock. Luckily I found more on eBay which was delivered quickly - it still took me ages to make this quilt though as we've moved house recently which has taken up so much time, and stress and anxiety but I'm sure anyone who's moved house will understand that!  The white is a lovely 100% cotton sheet from a local charity shop (I always wash them on a very high wash when I buy them and obviously only buy ones that are clean to begin with!).


As you can see I'm still sticking to straight line quilting but since this quilt I've had a go at wavy line quilting which I love the look of too.  I'll build up the courage to try some free motion quilting soon!  However I think with this particular design the straight lines work best.

The batting is 100% bamboo and is so lovely and soft.  The backing fabric is a 100% cotton double duvet cover from John Lewis which I found in a charity shop.  It is such lovely quality and didn't look like it had been used!  So far I've used it for 3 quilt backings and still have some left over. 

I remembered to add a quilt label to this one and I really need to try and remember to do this with every quilt. I used a rectangle of white fabric, covered it in spray starch, ironed it then used a Pigma Micron pen to write the label.  I like how it looks when the label is handsewn on the back like this but I wonder if maybe I'd be better machine stitching it to the backing fabric before making the quilt sandwich, or machine sewing it into the binding at a diagonal angle to make it more hardwearing? I'm working on one more babyquilt for a friend, one for Harris and one for me but I am planning to get some garment sewing in this month too! I have two Marilla Walker Maya tops cut out which I'd like to sew up and I'd like to get started on a test pair of trousers - New Look 6459.