Boling Alley: Lily Pad Quilt

I have a friend from college, Kristi. We first lived together my sophomore year, when Jeanie and I moved into our first apartment. Kristi was one of the other girls who randomly moved into that same apartment. The three of us moved to another apartment together, and lived there for a couple more years. During that time, Kristi had a couple frog blankets that she'd had since she was a baby; as I remember, someone made them for her mom when she was pregnant with Kristi.

Jeanie and Kristi

So when I found out that Kristi was also going to have a baby, I knew she needed a frog quilt for her little one. But I wanted to do something interesting for the front, and I came up with lily pads. Which I thought Kristi would also appreciate, since she likes the fine arts, and lily pads are reminiscent of the famous Monet paintings.

The front is made up of pieced blues, with the lily pads and flowers appliqued on top. I've collected lots of solid blue fabric over the years, and I thought that this would be a great way to use up that stash.

I cut long strips of the blues, and some squares, and got to work making a few different types of blocks, to give it a rippled pond look. Two of the different types of blocks are basically a log cabin type of block (only one has a much bigger center than you usually have).

The block on the right needs one more row of strips

Here it is (or one like it) all done

The other type of block is strips sewn together. Nothing too fancy.

After the top was all sewn and the lily pads and flowers appliqued on to it, I used basting spray to attach it to batting and the batting to the backing.

Basting spray is my newest love for quilting. It keeps the fabric from shifting while you machine quilt, so you can handle curves without worrying that the bottom layer is getting wonky. I've pretty much stuck to straight lines when quilting before (and the one time I didn't, on Emily's quilt, it was difficult), but with the basting spray I was able to quilt in curves, making the water look more like water, and less like blocks sewn together. At least, I hope it does. Either way, the basting spray kept everything together. It also makes putting your layers together so much easier, since you do the bottom layer first, and once that is smooth, put on the top layer. So you don't end up with wrinkles all over the bottom when you try to get the top layer just right.