Highly Influenced

I am stubborn. I try to avoid cliches or puns when naming my quilts. I strive for something more than "For (quilt recipient's name)". But as I mentioned, an obvious name for this quilt for my goddaughter's baby was alluding me. But not really. Every time I spread it out on the table,"Pretty In Pink" popped into my brain. NO, my stubborn side said, that's a movie title, one I've not even watched, and probably sending a message I don't want to send. And yet . . . this quilt IS so pretty in pink. So I gave in, inking the info on the back of the quilt. I usually use a micron pen to do my inking, and more recently, their plastic nib versions. Had a blue one I've used before, but it seemed to have dried up. I've had a lot of issues with that recently with micron pens I've purchased either at the Michael's store near me or added to an internet purchase from some place like Cheap Joe's. It's making me wonder how long these pens have sat in stock, because I have pens I bought years ago but don't use often that still work fine. Was about to change to a black one when I had a thought. Could I use one of their brush pens instead, since I had one of those in blue? Yes! In fact, a brush pen may move even better over fabric when using a light touch.

I am so pleased with my choices for the quilting. After finishing all the arrows on the blocks, I wondered if I shouldn't add more lines. I decided to wait until I'd quilted the sashing to make up my mind. The arrows were a take on one of Angela Walters' "dot to dot" designs from her recent series, Dot to Dot FMQ Challenge Quilting Along, such an easy method of quilting with straight lines. But for the sashings, I was considering several of her more curvy designs like serpentine or ribbon candy. I've done neither of these before and wasn't in the mood for practicing or setting up my machine for free motion quilting. As I stared and considered, it occurred to me I could put into practice more dot to dot quilting in that sashing, using the seams of the strips in the blocks as my "dots" to shoot for. This worked so well and when I spread out the quilt again, I didn't feel I needed any more quilting in the blocks. Thanks, Angela, for influencing how I approached the quilting on this piece.

When making baby quilts, I've gotten in the habit of quilting the baby's name somewhere within the quilting designs. This time I reserved the border for adding her name, interspersed with hearts. My script may not be the prettiest but the variegated thread hides some of my inconsistencies.

So here it is, ready at last to send off to baby Briar. But first, I'm going to make some pillowcases from what I have left of the Noah's Ark fabrics. I have quite a bit and have no desire for it to go back into my stash. They can go to the other kids in the family.