Here's Looking at You, Babe

Pictured is my newest completed quilt, a challenge entry for the 2013 Pacific West Quilt Show in Tacoma.  The rules of the challenge are to use the challenge fabric (the blue flowered fabric in the border and also fussy-cut flowers that are positioned on the octopus' tentacles to represent the "suckers") and to make the quilt an 18 inch square.

I had a lot of fun making the octopus, kind of an odd animal that was in need of some dressing up!  Besides the challenge fabric, I used batiks and hand-dyed fabrics.  I even learned a new free motion quilting stitch called 'pebbles in a stream' that I used in the ocean.  At the last minute I added the friendly little snail in the corner as the snail is kind of funny too.  Note the close up of the quilting and the use of the fussy-cut flowers.

I love making the back of the quilt an interesting place to visit and to read the story of the quilt and the quiltmaker.  Here is the label for my favorite octopus.