Windmills and Trees Cot Quilt

A friend of mine asked me to make a cot quilt for her brand new granddaughter.  The quilt is going to stay at her house and be used for all her grandchildren.  She asked for an "heirloom quilt" which is a bit daunting.  She wanted something "modern" and likes the trees I've done in the past.  So, rather than sit down with her and discuss the quilt step by step, I've decided to take the like-it-or-lump-it approach.  So this is what I've come up with and, if she doesn't like it, that's OK, I'll keep it as a wall hanging because I love it.  And I've written up a pattern for this one so maybe, finally, I'll actually get around to publishing a pattern for one of my quilts.  Let me know if you would be interested.

inspiration:

• The inspiration for the pinwheels background came Dan Piece and Press's Giraffe quilt where his background (which shows as the giraffes) was all neutral HSTs.  
• As ever, the inspiration for the trees came from this quilted placemat made by Stephanie (Sleighd on Flickr) which in turn was inspired by a quilt she saw in Pottery Barn!

details:

• The background is grey and cream pinwheels, mostly Bunny Hill's Puttin on the Ritz which I got for a song from Fat Quarter Shop a few weeks back when they were having one of their 50% off twitter sales.  
• The treetops are Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably from stash.  The tree trunks are a variety of B+W blenders, including some Mama Said Sew, mostly from a B+W blenders bundle Peg at Sew Fresh Fabrics made up for me.  

• The quilt is of course pieced using Aurifil 50wt, my piecing thread of choice for hand and machine work.
• The trees are raw edge appliqued and blanket stitched around using Aurifil 40wt.  
• The quilting is an Aurifil 40wt grey cross hatch with lines 1" apart.  
• I mark my quilting lines for straight line quilting using a hera marker (a plastic gadget that has a sharpish edge which you run over the fabric leaving a dent in it which you can follow so no risk of leaving a permanent pen line on the quilt).  

• It is backed and bound with one of Oakshott's "gem" fabrics (garnet) which are cheaper than their shot cottons, are not shot but are made using the same colour thread in the warp and the weft so you get the rich Oakshott colours and the soft Oakshott texture but at a much cheaper price (worth a look).  

• I tried a new wadding in this quilt.  It is a superwide (95") French cotton wadding from Oakshott.  It is beautiful to use - quite heavy, quite a low loft, a lovely drape once quilted, expensive feeling and you don't get covered in wadding fluff as you do with some of the other cotton waddings.  

• And lastly, but not in the least leastly, I finish off all my quilts with what I in my head call a "snagging".  Snagging is a term builders use when they finish off all the little jobs on a house.  I don't know if anyone else has a term for the finishing process or if there is a proper quilting term for this part of the process but this is what I do.  I sit down in front of something like an old episode of Friends on the telly armed with embroidery scissors, tweezers and a Korbond lint roller.  Snip threads with embroidery scissors, pull threads with tweezers and run a Korbond lint roller over the threads as you go which will pick up all the stray pieces of thread, wadding fluff, dust, cat hairs and anything else your quilt has picked up whilst it was being made.