Pinwheel quilt made by Mom

Isn't it pretty?  This is a quilt that mom made for one of her granddaughters as a birthday gift.

It all came about when I invited mom over one day to go through some of my quilt books for inspiration.  She wanted to make something not too complicated.  As we went through the books I caught my eye on the pinwheel quilt.  I continued to show mom different samples of pinwheels in different colours.  She was taken by one particular pinwheel quilt.  We dissected the pattern and colour placement to determine what exactly she liked about the quilt.  

Later there was a trip to the quilt store (Sister's Choice) to select the fabric.  When you are making a quilt for someone in specific you need to keep in mind who they are and what their character is.  This quilt was made for Allison. She is an energetic, vibrant young lady who enjoys motion, bright colours and her favorite is lime green.  We kept this in mind when choosing the fabrics.  Every part of the quilt to me represents Allison. The energetic and motion are represented by the pinwheels themselves that look like they are spinning.  Vibrant is represented by the bright colours and the young lady is the playful design that was chosen.  There is lime green in there too. 

Here is a close-up of the quilting.  The plain blocks have a two layer design, that from this angle looks like a flower.  The first white border has a wave pattern quilted on it.  The next photo shows the large border, also done in a wave and the second small border as well.  

We lucked out with the large border.  Initially at the first quilt store we found all the fabrics for the middle of the quilt, but could not find anything suitable for the borders.  Over the next week or so Mom put together the centre of the quilt.  We visited another quilt store(Hobby Horse).  There we tried out all different fabrics, to no avail.  Later just as we were packing up to go this blue caught my eye from under a stack of bolts, just a sliver of the blue. We gave it a try and just knew it was the one.  It managed to make all the centre colours pop. The backing fabric was chosen from the main flower in the large border and some of the pinwheels (seen in the top photo if the whole quilt, bottom right hand corner).

I hope she likes it.  Her grandmother did a great job. Definitely something special.