What I did last summer

While I'm in a posting mood (Oh, who am I kidding? I'm avoiding dusting!) I will show-and-tell two crib quilts I did for a friend's grandsons last summer. It's a pattern called School of Scrappy Fish by Bottle Quilt Co. and it is paper-pieced. I had never done paper piecing in all the years of my sewing and I enjoyed it, but am not sure enough to do it again. I'm proud of the workmanship but it was very out of character to make something by a published design. The only other thing I have made by a pattern in years was one of those "turning twenty" design things and I gave it away for a crib quilt. It was pretty but kind of a yawn.

These fish, on the other hand, are bright and bold and just great. You will notice that I appliqued eyeballs on them because they looked kind of blank without eyes. That's black fabric with white polkadots. I centered a dot on each applique circle. I wanted to put "google eyes" on them but couldn't find ones I felt were safe for a baby quilt. I also appliqued a sailboat on the backing for a label.

By the time I was finished paper piecing fish I was heartily sick of the process, however much I liked the result. Just look at how many pieces went into the seahorses!