From A - Tacking, Nautically Speaking

After spending last weekend visiting family, playing with horses, and snuggling tiny little barn cats it was time to get back to work and back to life this week.

A few months ago I was pinning quilts made of half-square triangles (HSTs) almost exclusively.

I thought I worked this obsession with HSTs out I my system when I finished my Swoon quilt top. Turns out that although I made about a million quite a few of these little suckers during that project it only took the right stack of fabric and the ever looming pressure of finding another baby gift project to push me over the edge once again.

I've been eyeing up Cluck Cluck Sew's Ziggy Baby Quilt pattern since I really started getting back into quilting. I bought the pattern the first chance I got but it has taken me months to find just the right combination of fabrics before the ball got rolling.

I started with this bundle from Pink Castle Fabrics and swapped a few of the fabrics to add some nautical prints by Dear Stella and a few scraps from the stash.

I keep reading people's rave reviews of Aurifil thread around the blogosphere and decided to see what all of the fuss was about. I found a sampler box of the Cotton Mako 50wt at a trade show and figured the colours would be good for top stitching and quilting.

I matched the a spool of thread to each zig zag section and used my walking foot as a guide to quilt around the edge of each stripe.

I liked the Aurifil thread. It wasn't life changing but it was certainly smooth and shiny and made a nice finish of the quilting. At 1300 metres a spool, I have more than enough to play around with.

I used a simple sail boat print for the backing and since the quilt was narrower than the fabric, I didn't bother piecing a back together.

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I'm really happy with how this quilt turned out. With the nautical flavour of these fabrics, I decided to name the quilt "Tacking" which is the sailing version of charting a zig zag course to sail against the wind. I thought it was appropriate given the difficult journey the intended recipient has had in trying to get pregnant.

The label was made using the instructions I found here and I like the effect. It is visually interesting without being a focal point on the back of the quilt.

I was lucky to find the striped fabric I used for the binding as it has almost all of the colours found in the quilt top and really ties everything together.

It feels great to get another project finished and another baby gift off the queue. Only 3 more projects to go until I there is a bit of a break in the baby arrival department. Now I only have to decide what to work on next!