Sketchy Ducks and the Teal-Lime Triangle Kid

…in which some triangles meet up, and some do not.

One of my volleyball teammates (team name:  Volleybrawlers) has had a baby!  Well, okay, his wife had the baby, but Bobby helped.  And prior to this actually happening, like back in spring, I have this vague recollection of asking him about the upcoming Blessed Event, and him mentioning something about nursery colors being in the blues and greens, and also that ducks would be involved.  I'm sure I had to pry this out of him during post-game beers, as I don't think that nursery colors are typically the sort of thing Bobby would volunteer, so I may be a little hazy on the details, or in fact have made up the entire thing up.  But as always, when someone gives me a color, such as "blue", I immediately panic, thinking "WHICH blue?"  There are so many.  Inevitably, my color paralysis leads me to choose All The Blues, like so:

Several blues, and a couple of lime greens.

In the first version of this, there was only blues, but it was kind of dead and boring to look at.  I think throwing some lime green in there livened it up a bit, and in my head the lime green was befriended and introduced around by the light blue to everyone else, and now they all get along like a house afire.  Don't ask me why my brain anthropomorphizes the relationship between colors like that.  Royal Blue doesn't like me to talk about it.


This here is your basic equilateral triangle baby quilt in whimsical modern colors, which you can find approximately one billion of on Etsy and eBay and the like.  This one is special, however, in that my sewing is hilariously wiggly in many spots, as my sad little sewing machine struggled over the intersection of 6 seams formed in the center of each hexagonal form.  To make matters worse, some of my triangles did NOT have a meeting of the minds, or corners, so what's a quilter to do?  Follow the actual triangles on the front, so that the quilting is equal distance from all edges visible on the front…..or just ram right through in a straight line so that the quilting looks straight-line from the back?  Answer:  split the difference and hope for the best!  Ha!  Take THAT, precision sewers on Etsy!

This came out of the dryer extra wiggly, but it straightened up a bit upon handling.  Of course, my quilts are not generally what you'd call "square."

 Somehow, these pictures are especially out of focus.  Ah well.  Suffice it to say that once I opted for lime, there was no end to my desire to increase the limeliness of this wee blankie, and so there are some very pleasant lime green fabrics happening on the back, interspersed with quite a lot of teal.  Teal and lime!  Perfect colors for a baby boy.  Not sure about whether they were perfect for this baby's actual nursery, but let's go with it.

I am a fan of the central lime and teal fabric here - as you may gather, this is the same wineglass/ orange peel pattern that I quilted the Cap'n's Minky-backed postage stamp with, though more colorful.  And as with the Big Lebowski's rug, it really tied the whole rest of the back together.

The quilting was just straight line outlines of each triangle, but I experimented with some variegated thread that turned out quite a neat pattern of light and dark on the back fabrics, particularly on the solid bar of darker teal that ran across the other colors.  This picture kind of shows it…

You can see where the lighter parts of the thread sort of leave streaks through the quilting line.  I like it!

And I rather liked the binding fabric on this - another iteration of the lime-liness, with a mock-herringbone tone-on-tone pattern.  Jolly!

If you saw Jeanne's purple Arkansas Traveler, you'll recognize this label as, apparently, The Way I Label Things Now.  Only Jeanne lost out in that I did not attempt to embroider a duck onto hers.  That's what that thing in the middle is, btw - a duck.  Though my non-existent drawing skills did not come into play here, since I traced this off a stock image which I stole from the internet, it turns out my tracing skills are ALSO kind of sketchy.  Trust me.  It's a duck.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck….

Blues and limes, by the dawn's early light.

A duck.  I promise.

So welcome, little Conner, and congratulations, Bobby and Sarah!  I hope he grows up smart and tall like his daddy, so that maybe we can get some fresh blood on our volleyball team in about 15 years.  Meanwhile, this is 100% machine washable (and, as Bobby astutely pointed out when I told him that earlier tonight, "It is now, regardless.")   May you have many blissful hours and days with your new little duckling!


Besos,
Astrid.