Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2010

I started piecing this quilt top at the Annual Mystery Night in 2005 at my local Quilting Store. The plan for the night was to arrive at the store around 9pm on a cold November Friday until 7 am on the Saturday morning before heading to the local cafe for a well deserved full English breakfast. My Mum had attended a few of the nights with me but she wasn't there at that particular one. We started with a warm-up project until midnight before switching to the main project until the morning. The night was always well attended and a lot of fun and no, nobody ever fell asleep despite the quilts available to snuggle under.

This quilt was the warm-up project. As per the name of the night, we didn't know the pattern until the end. We were sent a list of requirements and then worked through each step until the final design was revealed. I managed to piece the whole top by midnight. I was then pregnant with Big Boy (not knowing he was a boy yet) that we had nicknamed our "Little Fish" as he was due to be born a Pisces (Pisces and Fish is the same word "Poisson" in French). So when I found this lovely bright line of fabric with a underwater theme and lots of little fishes etc, I knew I had found what I needed.

After the top was pieced, I opted for 2 bright borders and picked orange and green to keep the quilt gender-neutral. To make the borders less plain, I added some applique: in the 2 top corners,

a starfish

and a sea horse

 and 2 algae

  in each of the bottom corner of the quilt. I wasn't very adventurous with the quilting - I quilted in the ditch around the bigger squares. I added the binding and finished hand sewing it in front of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Italy, just under one month before our precious little baby boy entered our life. He has had the quilt in his bedroom ever since.

Now you might be wondering why I am telling you all about this quilt out of the blue? The title of my post might have given you a clue!

Amy is organising the Blogger's Quilt Festival for Fall from today until 5 November. You have a week to go and marvel at all the beautiful quilts presented around the world and to read the stories behind them. Grab a coffee as you might stay online for a while!
See you soon, with more!
Celine