Wednesday, May 29, 2013

X's and O's...


Here's my finished X's and O's mini!  It finished out at 18 x 24.5. Once I actually got my butt in gear and cut up the pile of fabric that had  been sitting dormant for months on end, it moved ridiculously fast from start to finish.  Of course, that is because any monkey could look at this and replicate the pattern, but I still love it.  Mostly because it all stems from this little work of art from my oldest:


So we flow from that to this:

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To this!


Really the only thing that changed from the sketch to the finished product is that I added a few extra blocks of pink onto each row to even out the length a bit and arranged the letters differently to allow them to be a bit larger in size.  I love how all the pinks stand out so beautifully from the turquoise and even more how the appliqued X's and O's in the Posy fabric are the perfect touch.


The X's and O's are appliqued onto the quilt using Wonder Under - a paper backed fusible web.  I tried out a bunch of fonts, upper case and lower case letter combinations.  The one I thought was thick enough on this small scale but also nice and script-y was Channel in lower case letters.  I ended up printing out my letter templates in a size 250.  It sounds big, but that one square with my text is only about 6" square.  I finished them off with a blanket stitch in white.


There is even more Posy on the back side along with a stacked coin strip of pink.


I've seen a lot of wall hanging/mini quilts that have little corners on the back for easy hanging, so that's what I tried for this one.  The corners and the binding are done in a black/grey floral fabric that worked so well for this color palate!


I went back and forth on quilting this - I was honestly and truly going to do a loopy free motion quilting over the whole surface, but then I thought of straight line cross-hatching and how it would continue the X's into the quilting and I was sold.  I thought that I might try out pebble quilting in the pink bars (to add in some more O's, natch) but I kind of liked how they ended up standing out when they were just outlined.


If I had to do the pattern again on a larger scale, I think that I'd give loopy quilting a try - plus a larger scale would really highlight your "bar" fabrics and give you a BIG chance to applique some Xs and Os in fun fonts...or whatever word, initials, name that you'd like!  What do you think?  Interested in doing a throw or baby-sized version along with me later this summer?

Linking up:

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

17 comments:

  1. This turned out super cute! Great job.

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  2. Nice design. Fun source. How does your daughter feel about being a collaborator in design?

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    1. Thanks so much! She was pretty impressed for about 5 minutes...and then moved onto something else. Typical 5 year old :) It was a pretty sweet 5 minutes though!

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  3. I love the color combo and especially like the backing fabric. Nice!

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  4. Fantastically beautiful. Love the color choices and seeing your process.

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  5. The colors really jump out at you! Beautiful! The back is beautiful too!

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  6. Proves that simple can be great! I hope you bring it on Sat.!

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  7. Cute mini. The xo is such a clever idea.

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  8. It is gorgeous! A grander scale quilt along sounds great.

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    1. Fab interpretation, and your applique is so neat!

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  9. This is a beautiful quilt and lovely colours!

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  10. The X'S and O'S are terrific!!

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  11. Love the colours. Love the pattern. Fabulous stuff.

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  12. What a cute little project! Fun to see your process to creating this beauty.

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  13. Love how your daughters artwork inspired such an adorable quilt. You both did great!

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  14. I love the background color, an inspired choice to make the pink pop. This is such a sweet interpretation of your daughter's art!

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  15. I ♥ this:-) So sweet and the colors are fabulous!!!

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