Quilting Footballs

This quilt was made for our second grandson, now nearly nine years old.  He's the one whose dad took him out into the backyard and taught him to throw a perfect spiral pass at the age of two!  This kid lives and breathes football!  And other sports too.  The theme for his quilt was obvious from the start.  I spent several months rounding up miscellaneous fat quarters of sports related fabrics, and then adapted the size of a pattern I'd seen in the April 2012 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting called "Sticks and Bricks" to make this twin size quilt.

Free motion quilting this was fairly simple, with simple stippling in the blocks, wavy lines between the blocks and back & forth lines in the horizontal sashing.  The borders were the real challenge, and the most fun.  I made cardboard cereal-box templates of three different size football shapes and traced them randomly on all the borders.  Quilting a smooth line for the football shapes proved a bit difficult especially with the larger ones which required stopping the machine to reposition my hands, but the overall effect turned out well I think.  Footballs on mud-colored fabric - what could be better for a nine-year old boy?

This fellow seemed to think he needed to be included in all the photos!  I think he was hoping the quilt would fall off the line so he could roll around on it!

The quilt back was pieced with a long row of leftover blocks, breaking up the overall soccer ball motif of the backing fabric.

Close shot of the back.

So, with this year quickly drawing to a close, there's only one more 2012 finish left to show you, hopefully before the new year arrives.  Olie and I bid you adieu!