Les Amis Quilt finished!

This weekend, I finished up my first quilt of the year, the Les Amis Quilt!

I've been working on this one for the past few weeks, and I'm so glad to finally have it completed. The quilt's headed in the mail this week to my cousin/best friend, who's expecting her first child in April, a boy who is destined to be B's soul-mate cousin one day.

I fell in love with Patty Sloniger's Les Amis collection when it first came out, and I was so excited when this quilt gave me the perfect excuse to buy it. It was especially perfect because it allowed me to indulge my obsession with fox fabrics, which continues to linger. (I saw the other day that there's now a flannel version of the Les Amis prints available. Eeek! Must stop myself from making a matching blanket...)

For the top, I modified this lattice quilt pattern from Mommy by Day Crafter by Night. Her quilt is a large throw size, so I shaved it down to make a large-ish baby quilt.

The sashing is Kona snow, and the main fabrics are mostly from the Les Amis collection (I bought this fat quarter bundle from Hawthorne Threads, which is sadly out of stock at the moment) with a little Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow (Acorn Chain in Pond and Nap Sack in Grass), Timeless Treasures Crosshatch Sketch in Latte, and Half Moon Modern (Big Dots in Aqua) thrown in.

Um, have I mentioned how much I love these little animals? Look at those foxes, and owls, and turtles, oh my! And, oh those chipmunks!

 

 

The binding is from Lotta Jansdotter's Bella collection (Scattered Sand in Warm Gray, love it!). For the backing, I combined some of the leftover blocks from the front of the quilt (I made too many when I was trying to pare down the sizing) with this great gray chevron from Barbara Jones's Cruzin' collection.

For the quilting, I began by mimicking the lattice pattern, so I straight-line stitched on the inside of each side of the sashing. Then, I used a square freezer paper template to mark a diamond inside each of the larger diamonds and then sewed around the template. I really love how it turned out, and it's a bit of a departure for me. I know it's not anything too crazy, but it's a baby step toward more adventurous quilting.

 

I also love how the quilting worked with the back. The straight lines looked perfect with the chevron, and I like how some of the lattice pattern cut through the middle of the blocks at the top and bottom of the backing.

 

For the sake of full disclosure, I had some problems getting some of the diamond corners to line up, which I think was partially due to the technique used to create the blocks and partially due to some less than accurate cutting on my part. It's definitely something I'll try to perfect the next time, but I don't think it's too noticeable here.

All rolled up and ready to go!

Josh, we hope you (and your mommy and daddy) love it! Happy cuddling!