Come Sail Away With Me

My Bee Inspired online bee went in a different direction this year.  One of our projects was optional charity blocks--hosts picked a block, then whoever wanted to contribute sent one or more blocks by a deadline.  I hosted the first quilt and picked a fairly simple sailboat block.  I got many boats back, including from some folks not originally in the Bee Inspired Bee.  I got so many blocks I decided to make four quilts! I took the first three to a local park with a pond for an on-location photo shoot.

I have three of the four quilts finished.  As I was piecing tops, I decided to do a few smaller tops.  These quilts will go to the local children's hospital and I know that they can use a variety of sizes.  The four-boat quilts measure about 28" square.  All three of these are backed with fleece.

I used different sashing fabric for each.  The larger quilt has  bubble patterned that was donated to Project Linus when our chapter was still in existence.  I thought the bubbles would look great as water.

This one is a cloud patterned fabric I pulled out of a scrap bin at a quilt show last spring.  I knew I would do something fun with it. I like the idea of sailing among happy clouds.

And this one is Kona Emerald, left from my Postage Plus quilt.   All of these were quilted with a wavy line stitch to simulate waves. 

I chose finishing the boat quilts as my One Monthly Goal with Patty of Elm Street quilts. Thing is, at the time I was planning just two quilts; I didn't decide to break them into four until later.  So I don't know if I missed the mark with these or overshot!  I'll let Patty decide.  Quilt number 4 is partially assembled at the moment and will have 9 boats. 



These quilts are projects #13, 14, & 15 on my Q4 list of goals for the Finish Along and is on my list of projects needed for my PhD (Projects Half Done) with Quilting Gail.  I'm also linking up with Tish of Tish in Wonderland for her UFO party and will use this as a completed UFO for the UFO & WIP challenge hosted by Julie of The Crafty Quilter.