Here is closer look at the upper left corner pulling together all the elements that have been giving me so much fun. There are the checkerboards, the appliqué spiral antennae, the embroidered eyes, the rickrack smiles, and that adorable, blue, flitting bug fabric in the border - inspiration for the name Bugs R Us.
The original kit made a quilt size of 45" x 57". This was too long for a baby and annoyingly wide enough I would have needed to piece the back. Here is the leaflet cover for the original design. Although I loved the outermost border bug print, I felt it competed with the whimsy of the central blocks, because it was slightly serious and a bit too realistic. But instead it made for a wonderful backing.
I ran the one yard of the large bug print crosswise as the backing fabric. I had to add several inches to the selvages, now at the top and bottom, to make it long enough. I used horizontal bands of a small ladybug print leftover from the front. It can bee seen at the very bottom of the following photo. It blends in, in a camouflage sort of way, just like bugs do. Frankly there was too little of that ladybug print on the front as cute as it was. For the binding, I will be using the four spotted fabrics from the checkerboards. They were too cute not to introduce again somewhere in the quilt.
Now I am ready to make my quilt sandwich and "quilt as desired". I hope I do not lose as much sleep over deciding the quilting pattern as I did over finding the right name.
How adorable! I love the whole composition and the whimsy of the appliqued antennae and sewn-on faces (what are the eyes made of?). And I agree that that is a rather "serious" print for the rest of the fantasy-bug fun. I am excited to see how it turns out as the backing, though, and I think that using the rest of that spotted print for the binding is an inspired idea!
ReplyDeleteGlad you like the whimsey. The eyes are embroidered so there are no loose buttons. I think that spotted binding is my last hurrah of inspirations. I am plumb out of inspired ideas. Now I am struggling with the "quilt as desired" part and Bugs R Us is hanging out awaiting my decision. Now if buying quilting books helps I have bought three while hoping the quilting muse will whisper something in my ear, I am all set. The books I bought are 1) Shape-Free-Motion-Quilting by Angela-Walters 2) Step-by-Step Free-Motion Quilting by Christina-Cameli, and 3) Hooked on Feathers by Sally-Terry. No. 1 is great for fillers in circles, squares and triangles. No. 2 is good for non-dense flowing type strip type patterns. No. 3 has a feather technique that avoids backtracking and so there are no double thickness stitch patterns in places. All were recommendation from ladies in my Handiquilter Club group.
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