Blue Nine-Patch Quilt

Every quilt teaches me something and this one taught me to always be flexible and keep an open mind throughout the process. This was supposed to be a dachshund quilt.

My sister-in-law loves dachshunds and I intended to make a quilt for her with that in mind. It just never worked out. I had a dachshund on this quilt at one point, but after soliciting several opinions, I decided that the dachshund had to go. The background was to be a scrappy blue patchwork, so I had quite a pile of blue nine-patch blocks.

I started playing with them on the design wall and liked the way this was shaping up.

After adding some sashing and some blue setting triangles around the border, this quilt was a go.

Once the design was set, I became a little obsessive about seeing the finished top and finished it up the same day.

It sat for a few days while I pondered the quilt design. I really wanted to do concentric circles, and started working on those, but my circles weren't exactly circle shaped. After stitching the first three rounds, I abandoned that idea and did a bit of unstitching until I could practice a little more.

Some simple straight line quilting seemed the next best choice. Diagonal lines are stitched through the nine-patch blocks using 50 weight Aurifil thread in a pretty blue 2735. Then I added three lines of Aurifil 2000 on each row of sashing. Looks like my straight lines could use a little practice, too, but I will just say that the lack of perfection adds to the whimsy of the quilt.

There were a few leftover blocks so those were incorporated into the quilt back.

I think my sister-in-law will be happy with this quilt, even if it doesn't include a dachshund.