It was hard to decide what to do...I didn't want anything too cutesy, but I also didn't want anything too grown up.
I also planned to have a gender neutral nursery, so I wanted the quilt to be relatively gender neutral, too.
Enter: hot air balloons
After much scouring of Pinterest, I decided that indeed, a quilt with hot air balloons was the way to go. Next, I needed to decide how I wanted this thing to look.
I don't prefer to sew by hand, so complicated applique was out of the question. Trying to stick with a more modern approach, I decided to keep the balloons as simple as possible.
I decided to machine applique circles as the balloons, and then machine applique brown trapezoids as the baskets underneath. I used brown thread in straight lines as the ropes attaching the two.
I can't choose a favorite balloon! |
For the finishing, I machine quilted around the balloons as a whole (don't look too closely...the outline isn't very even sometimes), as well as around the squares, and I free-motioned wavy lines on the outside borders.
I LOVE the border fabric, which I also used on the back. It's so playful, and I think it really ties all of the balloons together.
This is a small crib sized quilt, and is made with fabric from my stash. Most balloons were made from charm pack squares.
I've thought about writing up a pattern for this. Any interest?
Until next time,
~Kristen