Deep Blue Sea: A Quilt

I made this queen-sized quilt for my husband and my bed, and I pictured it being deeply dreamy and somewhat sleepy in shades of blue and grey, with some soft orange to hot it up just a little.

Well.  Look at the vibrancy and zing that resulted! 

I do really adore patchwork for its ultimate surprise, and I do love this quilt, but it cannot be called restful and quiet. 

Its name is "Deep Blue Sea," a reference to the sleepiness and rest I envisioned, and the reality of the color and churn and surprise that actually lives in the depths of the sea (I mean, that's what I see in National Geographic, ok?).

This pattern is the scrappy trip around the world.  I googled tutorials and went from there. I started the first block in November 2016, and finished the quilt top in time to take it with me on our family trip to Maine in June to start the handquilting.

I had not planned to do a border, but I couldn't resist the urge to play, so I thought of having the trip-around-the-world break into a blue border in spots.  But I also used some large patches in the border of the prints used in the blocks because I adore scrappiness.  In this case, I think the effect is too chaotic and would have worked better with a blue border punctuated just by a few scrappy trip blocks.

I pieced the back of the quilt because scrappiness is my jam.

As for the quilting, I thought I would knot the orange streaks with orange wool and felt them into little balls.  But after doing all the handquilting on the rest of the patches, I changed my mind.  The orange did not need any more highlighting, the quilt did not need any more lively texture. 

I did some machine quilting in the solid border as I love to do by way of framing the quilt.  The handquilting is all in blue-grey perle cotton: I like the stitches to show up more than just create texture.

Overall, I am pleased with this quilt.  It's a bit short on the sides for our standard queen bed, so I will remember not to trust the packaged batting's measurements next time but do my own measuring.

The back of the quilt is the restful, soothing side with the wonderful stitching pattern, so I expect to show either side of the quilt depending on my mood.

I'm on to Phoebe's quilt already! I do love to have a big project humming along in the background.