The Creamsicle Quilt
When it comes to naming quilts, I'm often stumped. This one, though, was easy. All that orange and white? Creamsicle! Never mind that I had to explain what a creamsicle is to my children. Don't worry - a trip to the grocery is planned for later today so I can remedy the missed opportunities of their young taste buds.
As I mentioned earlier this week, I pieced this quilt top in 2008. Crazy, right? I am not sure why I didn't quilt it sooner. It's been shuffled around through many studio clean outs and has lingered in the to-do pile. I am glad that I finally got around to finishing it. It's cheerful and happy and very orange.
The top is obviously influenced by Denyse Schmidt, in particular the Hop, Skip & A Jump quilt in her first book, Denyse Schmidt Quilts. I did not follow her pattern, but rather just sliced up a bunch of white fabric into strips and pieced them with similar strips in orange prints. When I look back at the top, I am so happy to see some of my very favorite fabrics - Flea Market Fancy, Katie Jump Rope, some Heather Ross stripe, a favorite Alexander Henry floral, those Japanese elephants...I could go on. These fabrics were among the first ones in my stash - the ones I built it around and, in a way, this quilt is a bit of a time capsule back to that summer when my girls were 8 and 6. I vividly remember sitting on the carpet just outside the door to my original walk-in closet sewing room, cutting fabric while they played in the room adjacent. In so many ways, it does not seem like six years ago.
I pieced the backing from a large piece of orange and white check shirting fabric that was in my stash. I added the Amy Butler floral and the piece of Katie Jump Rope. While I did hesitate before cutting that particular Denyse print, I didn't let myself get overly sentimental. If there is one thing that I am taking away from this quilt is that I need to use the fabric that I love instead of letting it sit on the shelves.
The quilting is simple lines and in keeping with the look of the quilt, they are not at all measured out and not at all straight. This made the actual quilting fast and rather mindless which is exactly what I needed this past weekend. The binding is an orange Kona from my stash and I even pieced the batting from scraps, making this quilt entirely from what I had on hand. I love it when I can do that.
It measures 46.5" x 50" after washing - a nice lap quilt. I am donating it our church/school carnival where it will be raffled off in July.
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This post includes affliate links. And thank you, Jane, for always volunteering to hold my quilts.