Modern Tennis Shoes

Just finished another quilt for my customer who has the two adopted grandchildren coming from Africa.  She is making a throw for each of her grandchildren for Christmas.  The last two should be in my hands tonight or tomorrow.

This is definitely a very "hip" grandma as she has tried hard to match each quilt with the style of the grandchild.  This quilt is NO exception.  The teen boy to receive this quilt loves tennis shoes so there is even tennis shoe fabric in the quilt!

As for me, this is WAY out of my league.  It was quite the effort to come up with quilting that would fit the fabric and design.  My thought process in determining the quilting took in to consideration that the pattern blocks consist of a large and small rectangle beside each other and off-set.  The next block  is flipped and the process continues  to accomplish six blocks in a row.  Also,  since there is so much color in this quilt, an all over design might get lost and Grandma is NOT an "allover" design person.  So...using an Aurifil, 50 weight  gray thread (#2610), I quilted simple swirls in each of the large rectangles because those were all busy fabrics and the quilting would be somewhat obscure.  In this photo the swirls are in the blue plaid and the tennis shoes.

The more slender rectangles were pretty much solid but I didn't want to add too much more busy- ness to the quilt, so I did a simple "electrical spiral" with an "l" or "e" in 50 weight Aurifil thread but with a variegated called Rainbow (#3817).  I did them facing each other to spiff up the design and fill in the block.  I really like how this turned out though you really can't see the variegated thread in the photos.

The black border was hard to figure out because it moved with the blocks.  So I ended up with a more modern design that I worked down the small one inch sashing.  Using black Aurifil, again in 50 weight, as I approached a black square or rectangle, I entered it and echoed it toward the center.  I lightened up these two photos extensively so the quilting would show up.

The border needed a break from the rectangles so I went back to the gray and did a double circle, while working my way across the border.  Not to deviate too much, the corners are quadroned into squares like cornerstones.  I marked with a  blue line marker 1/2" away from the edge of the quilt so the stitching would not be lost in the binding but had not yet removed the marking when I took these photos.

The depth of quilting really shows on the back and is very cool.

So that's my Modern Tennis Shoe finish; it was a creative challenge.  

 I hope you are enjoying the Christmas spirit.  My computer has been busy making noises today with each new email announcing cyber Monday or  cyber week.  Don't let the shopping overwhelm the joy!  Tomorrow our family will decorate!