Project Quilting 15.6: Irish Chain

The Project Quilting challenges have made the first three months of the year fly by - I can't believe March is already almost over!  I also can't believe that this is the first time I have participated - I'm already looking forward to season 16 next year.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  The sixth and final Project Quilting challenge is Irish Chain.  I have always admired Irish Chain quilts, but I've never actually made one.  Luckily for me, my kids are home on spring break this week otherwise I probably would have over-extended myself and made a full-size Irish Chain quilt.  Instead, I made a single oversized block into the cutest little baby quilt!

My quilt is based on a sketch of a Triple Irish Chain block that I found on a website featuring vintage quilt blocks and a single Rubber Ducky quilt block by Kelli Fannin.  I enlarged the duck block so that it would fit in the center of my 30" Irish Chain block, and then I added a simple border with another four patch in each corner to continue the chain to complete it.  I love a good mash-up and this one is one of my best!  My sons enjoy hiding the tiny plastic ducks in the second picture all over the house, and they had a great time styling this picture of the finished duck block.

I finished the top quickly, and I had time to quilt this quilt in my favorite way: matching thread colors and different patterns! It has been a long time since I had an opportunity to do this and I enjoyed pulling out all of my thread colors again.  I started off by giving the duck a cartoon smile on his beak and some light meandering in his body (the wing is my favorite), then some swirls in the water he's floating on. I used white bobbin thread when I was doing the blue spirals on the front to keep the colors on the back soft.  Finally, I couldn't resist doing a freehand orange peel in the white Irish Chain pieces.  Anytime I can do an orange peel without marking anything it's practically an automatic choice.

The quilt is finished with a soft yellow gingham back and a bright-orange binding, a big difference from my normal black.  The white pattern on the orange looks like bird tracks to me so I think it is the perfect finishing touch to this quilt.

I'm linking up my successful finish with the Project Quilting 15.6 challenge page.  Thanks for stopping by!