Pooh Bear & Friends

There is nothing like a new baby arriving in the family to spur on some sewing. This little quilt was made for a little one born yesterday, & congratulations must go out to S.... & H....... on the birth of their son.

I have only met the mother of this child a few times, & don't really know too much of her background. But every new child born into this world deserves something special, so I decided to make a quick & simple quilt, something that could be loved & cuddled into for many years to come.

To make it quick, I was on the lookout for a printed panel that I could just quilt, rather than taking lots of time in cutting & piecing, let alone applique or digitizing. After many visits to the local fabric stores, I found this piece of Disney print featuring Pooh Bear & his friends. Perfect! I could just layer it with some batting & backing, quilt it, then bind it & wallah! Done! Well, so I thought.

When I bought the fabric, my first thought about the quilting was to do it in straight lines, between the rows of patterned squares & circles. But when I had it layered on the table ready to pin, it started to talk to me. It must have been the angle I was looking at it, all layered on the table,  that made me notice the diagonal lines. The little patterns are all printed in either a circle or a square, and if we look at them straight, they alternate, one circle, one square. It is only when we look closer that we notice that the alternating patterns produce diagonal lines of all square or all circles. Mmmmmm......... maybe I could quilt it with diagonal lines. No, that would go through the printed patterns & spoil them. So my mind when one step further, making a line going around the outline of half a square, then a short diagonal line to the next square, then around the outline  of half of the next square. Much better!

After making this decision, I thought I would be able to continue each row with only going around half the square. It would certainly be enough machining to hold the layers together for washing. But something wasn't right, it looked incomplete. So then I decided to make a second row, still linking the squares together in a diagonal line, but this time going around the other half of each square.

 It took me a long time, longer than I thought, with each diagonal row of pattern requiring two rows of quilting. I am so glad I quilted it like this. It not only made an interesting pattern of stitching on the back, it made all the little designs pop out of their background on the front.

Lesson learned, take note of the design and explore all options for quilting to achieve the best results.