Lori's Dancing Ladies-Blanket Toss

This is the second of Lori's Alaska quilts.  When she first gave me this, I had just recently gotten my Innova, and I wanted to wait and build some skills and comfort level before tackling this quilt, so Lori waited several months for me to get this done.  I sure appreciate her patience. 

Lori said these characters are from a storybook she and her daughters have loved, and so when she spotted this kit on her Alaska cruise (and apparently there isn't time to shop for anything other than kits on those stops), she had to have it.  The storybook is Mama Do You Love Me by Barbara Joosse and Barbara Lavallee.  The pattern is Blanket Toss by Mount Redoubt Designs.

This is the top before quilting, or a 'flimsy' as it is sometimes called...

I had so much fun with this quilt, deciding on how to quilt the 'snow' behind the dancers, and how to quilt their clothes.  Their snowpants and mittens all got cross-hatched, in reminiscence of some snowsuits my Mom had made in the late 70's early 80's from quilted fabric.
 

 The echoed curls in the above 'snow' was a design I saw in Angela Walter's new Free Motion Quilting book, which arrived just as I got to this block.  I'll be using that one again.

It's maybe too hard to see, but this dancer is a little older than the others (her hair is a little grey), and she's been dancing up a storm--her grey hair is all messy!

 The back is nearly as fun as the front.

Unfortunately this is the only picture I took of the completed quilt in entirety, and it's not a great picture.