Asian-themed Girly Quilt

This quilt is 100% made from fabric, thread, and batting I had on hand. One quiet Friday night I came across some cutesy Asian-themed fabric from a previous project, and I decided to make something of it with the goal of using only fabric I had on hand. I had a secondary goal of completing the top that very night.

The fabric was cute, but it didn’t lend itself well to being simply cut into regular squares. The little girl images would have been halved or missing parts. So I cut as many whole ones out as I could, resulting in just six squares – much less than I thought. But that was alright because I had plenty of colors to accentuate, and I had planned on having a good deal of white fabric as the background.

The piecing of this little top was akin to putting together a puzzle, but I eventually did it. I was happy to use up some of my fabric stash as well as create a cute and whimsical top. I already had a feeling what I was going to do with the top if it came out as I hoped.

When I first designed it, I only had the main part with the white background, and I was…whelmed. I just didn’t love it, and I wasn’t used to that. I posted a picture on a quilting group, asking for advice, and everyone pretty much said the same thing – a border. Well, I had pink and yellow aplenty still at this point, so I decided on two colors to ensure everything was tied together nicely. And the group was right! Once I added the borders it did look better.

The backing was the same story as the original Asian fabric – I bought way too much for a different project. In fact, I had so much of it that it sufficed for a backing! That meant I had at least four yards of lime green fabric lying around. Yeek! I was glad for a chance to put it to use.

I ended up going with a variegated pink thread for the quilting.

In the end, I was glad I added the borders, and I had a quilt I was fairly proud of. I ended up donating it to my children’s preschool’s silent auction. I did get a chance to see it back in January at a birthday party, and the mother told me it was holding up very well.