Waterfront Park Quilt finished!

Yippee, yippee, yahoo! The Waterfront Park quilt is done! This is by far the most "involved" quilt I've ever made, and I'm beyond thrilled with how it turned out. So much so that I really, really wish I didn't have to give it away, but it's destined to be a wedding gift for my brother and sister-in-law this weekend, and I hope they love it was much as I do.

 

 

 

 

My brother and sister-in-law met back in architecture school, so the original idea for this quilt began with the Architextures line from Carolyn Friedlander. Of course, by the time I started on the quilt, it was impossible to find the entire (or even most of) the line anywhere, so I was forced to go down another path, and I'm so glad I did. I love everything about the Waterfront Park line — the designs, the colors, the variety. And, of course, there's a bridge print, which satisfied my desire to get a little architecture nod in there.

The bridge print is the only one that didn't get incorporated into the front, mainly because I didn't want to break it up and lose pieces of the bridges. Instead, I included the full fat quarters in the back and then worked in the remaining pieces in strips. The back definitely took a lot less time than the front, but I love it almost as much.

For the front, I used the charmed whirlygigs tutorial from Turtle Hill Quilter, which is really well done. I started with six rows of whirlygigs across and seven down but ended up adding two half rows (one on the top and one on the bottom) after I realized the quilt wasn't going to be as big as I'd hoped. It's already boxed up, and I forgot to measure, but I think it ended up measuring around 48" x 60".

As I've mentioned before, the layout was greatly inspired by Jess's bee blocks, which I still think are great. Maybe I need to make a mini version of this quilt. Her little whirlygigs are too cute.

I ended up buying more of the wonderful domino dots in navy from Hawthorne Threads for the binding, and I really like how it frames the quilt so well. I thought about using one of the peachy fabrics, but I love how the navy really pops against the pale gray. I attached the binding by machine using my normal technique.

 

 

I quilted it using pale peach thread, which was a nice touch. It blended so well with the colors but also gave a little pop of color. I quilted it with straight lines in an asymmetrical "V." I think the quilting plays nicely with the twirling shapes on the front without detracting from them, and you can really see the quilting in the negative spaces on the back.

 

This beauty is now folder, boxed, and ready to go off to help some wonderful people make a new home together.

Of course, a reveal post wouldn't be complete without a few blooper shots. It was a very windy day, folks. Thank you to my wonderful hubs, who stood in the snow in his running gear (we stopped at the park pre-workout) so I could get pics.

 

Psst ... I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!