Finished 17 February 2018

After piecing a simple Sunshine and Shadows center, I had lots of 5" pre-cuts left, but not enough of any matching squares to expand the patchwork. So I decided to use the rest of the squares to make a pinwheel border. The black inner border was too strong for a baby quilt, and I've had a couple of yards of a lovely yellow floral print in my stash for years. It's a bit on the bright side, but the quilting will tone it down a bit.

The squares were divided into lights and darks, and made into half-square triangles, which in turn were sewn into pinwheels. Still more black than I like, but that's what came in the pre-cuts bundle.

Once the pinwheels were sewn into strips, the yellow inner border was trimmed to fit. Then a wider outer border of the yellow was added to finish it.

I used some leftover pieces of 80/20 cotton/polyester batting, zig-zagging them together. to make one piece. For the backing, I used a piece of pink-and-blue calico yardage that's been in my stash for years. It doesn't match the front in any way, but it's pretty all by itself, and very suitable for a baby's quilt. The binding is from some darker yellow/gold fabric that goes well with the yellow of the borders.

The Quilting

I decided to keep it simple, so I used the meander zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine (zig-zag #4 on my Bernina, width at 4.0 and length at 4.5) and quilted the body from one corner, to suggest the rays of the sun. The yellow borders were simply quilted with lines from edge to edge lengthwise, and the pinwheels were quiltied in-the-ditch in each seam. The thread is a Gutermann variegated yellow and gold, with cream in the bobbin.