Sail Away: Kiddo quilt finished

Happy end of the week, everyone!  The sail boat quilt I started a couple weeks ago has been finished and gifted to its new owners.

This quilt is based on one I saw here at Blue Elephant Stitches.  So simple, just half square triangles, but so cute!  This design is great for featuring novelty kid fabrics and there is so much you could do with it.  A simple blue and white two-color version of this quilt would look classic and more mature for an older child.  You could change the arrangement of the sails on each boat and/or change the layout of the boats themselves to change the look of the quilt.

I was initially planning to do some sort of all over design on this but then got the idea to outline each boat in it's corresponding thread color.  Ideally I was imagining some of that chunky embroidery-thread hand quilting that's been all the rage lately; it would have looked wonderful against that natural linen. Realistically, though, I knew that if I did that it would take me months to get it done.

Instead of doing the hand quilting I went ahead with the machine, using my walking foot as a guide to outline the boats in their matching colors.  I used a cream thread to fill in a little echo quilting in the open spaces and called it a day.

I am really a fan of less is more when it comes to quilting.  Minimal quilting keep the quilt soft is flexible.  Of course that works out well for me since I generally prefer piecing to quilting and would rather devote less time to quilting :)

I bound it in red, which goes perfectly with the backing.  The backing may be of this one may be my favorite part of the entire quilt.  I decided to do a pieced back of 12" blocks of aqua, loosely water-themed fabrics.

From novelty pirate-themed fabrics to (my favorite) a slice of Tula Pink's Salt Water collection.

Of course I also included the embroidered label (if you missed the details about what it says you can read more here.)  This was where I made use of the bonus triangles I got from doing to boat hulls on the front.

The quilt finished at about 60" x 50" (I had to work to keep it throw sized and not let it grow too big).
It was wonderfully well received with strict instructions that it must be used, not put away.  I even made the background neutral linen rather than white to make it stain resistant. It has already been snuggled by little boys :)

Linking up to Finish it Friday!