Project: L's Baby Boy Quilt

I had a great opportunity to make a fast friend this past summer. Towards the middle of the summer, she found out she was going to have a baby. Instantly, I knew I wanted to make a quilt for her (even though at that point I wasn't busting quilts out like I am now). We've been staying in touch and the baby is coming in a matter of weeks now. I gave her a few choices for this baby boy quilt and this is the one she liked:

Honestly, not a hard quilt. I think the hardest part was figuring out how big the finished block was going to be so I would know how big to make the final quilt. She liked the idea of either yellows with grey and navy or aquas/blues with grey. I went through my stash and this is what we came up with:

Beautiful, no? So, this kind of quilt is done as a "tube" quilt. Amazing tutorial again (by Missouri Star Quilt Company) for the pattern called "Summer in the Park". You basically take 6-2 1/2" strips and sew them into two sets of 3 strips, press them (I forgot this step on the first tube. DON'T FORGET TO DO THIS), and then sew the two strips into a tube. Once that is done, you cut them at a 45 degree angle and you've already given yourself the seams. Now, with 6 2 1/2" strips, your finished block (after you sew the blocks together) will be about 7". Again, this was the hardest part going in because I didn't know how big the block would be (but I did know I wanted a 4x5 quilt).

I made a total of 3 tubes for this quilt and varied which fabrics to use but always alternating between the grey and the blues.

Getting a first look at the blocks together.

Got the second batch done to add in...

And finally all blocks are in! 

Now to chain piece them together and then rows together. What I did for this was (waited for the baby to take his nap…) I left it on the floor and picked up two blocks at a time so that I wouldn't mess up the pattern/design and so I wouldn't lose my place. Here's the first two rows together.

And the blocks all together:

I knew from the original photo that I also want to do two borders so these were the ones that were auditioned and got the part. The blue- I used as a 2" border (cutting it into 2 1/2" strips, only needing 4) and the the grey as a 4" border (cutting into 4 1/2" strips, again only needing 4)

First border on:

Working on the second one:

Quilt top all done (before it was pressed) :

*Finished quilt top size: ~40"X~48"

I've decided to start doing some fun backings on SOME of my quilts to try this out. I used up the last of each of these fabrics and it was a perfect size backing for this quilt.

All basted to each other and ready to be marked for quilting.

I decided that I would go the exact same route as the original photo/quilter did: all over stippling pattern for quilting. Easy enough. I think the hardest part of it is the tracing (mostly because I have a light blue marker and so it doesn't show up as well on the dark grey and the dark blues).

Quilting on the stippling:

Adding the dark grey binding:

Quilt all finished, ready for a wash to get the marker out:

After the wash (front view):

After wash (back view):

I know that she will love it! It was so fun to make. 

For those interested in how the timeline looked on this quilt, I started it Friday, took a break from it Saturday and Sunday, got back on it Monday and finished it Tuesday night.

Project: Fast Baby Girl Quilt- Disappearing Four Patch

So, I mentioned in my last post I had to stop from Tuesday morning until Friday night to make a baby quilt. Here it goes: I had bought a charm pack from Missouri Star Quilt Company (I've been sucked in my their AMAZING daily deals) and hoped these colors would be loved by the mom to be. 

Here's the color pallet:

See- 81% off. How could I pass this up? Then I used a handy little tutorial by the same company (found on YouTube) and decided that I'd do a disappearing four patch. 

Here's the quilt I based this quilt off of:

Super cute for a baby quilt, right? And not that hard to construct. I had some white fabric on hand that I made into a charm pack (5" squares) and used 40 of the 42 from each pack (from the colors and from the white). That made it a 4 X 5 block quilt (the blocks end up being about 7 1/2" after you've made them disappearing four patches). First I laid out the squares out on the table (not all at first as I was deciding how big I wanted to make this):

I then stacked them into a pile and chain pieced these bad boys into a 4 patch (just 4 squares sewn together- nothing special). And then you make 4 cuts 1" from the middle seam on all four sides of the middle point. Then, you flip a few of the pieces, including the middle square a quarter turn counter clockwise. 

This is the finished block (again, AMAZING tutorial on YouTube):

This is what I chose as my backing. I like this because the mom can use either side as the top. (A great fabric that I got from shop of Mom).

Here's how the first part of it looked- not all the blocks yet.

Now all the blocks laid out:

This is a photo of the fabrics I was auditioning for the 4" border I wanted (4 1/2" border if you include seam allowance).

Penny's good eye (along with my mom's) chose the yellow with flowers. This was fabric that was given to me from a friend who got it from someone who hordes a lot of fabric. I am a lucky person :)

Borders sewn down:

All the layers based and ready to be quilted:

I decided to use the floral border again that I just used on Aunt #2 quilt. Very cute. It's technically called pumpkin seed border.

And if you look closely, I used a stippling pattern for the main part of the quilt. The longest part was tracing it all on. I know one day I'll be confident enough to stipple on my own.

First section quilted!:

All stippled!

All quilted and loved this pink floral fabric for the binding (Look familiar? It was one of the colors on the previous quilt :) )

All trimmed up and ready to bind!

Back view.

Binding started!

Before the wash:

All washed and DONE!

Back view:

Zoomed in on the back:

Front view zoomed:

Another close look:

Last look:

It was well received. I don't know this mom to be really well but it brought her to tears (about) as it reminded her of her grandma who quilts as well. So, a quick little project- Tuesday morning to Friday night- all done and out the door.

Project: Aunt Lap Quilt #2

Here it goes: Penny chose this quilt for her second aunt (on my husband's side). Thankfully, this quilt came with a free pattern (Pinterest is just sucking me in, you know):

Now, to make this a lap sized quilt, I just made this a 3x4 instead of 4X4 (making it's approx. final dimensions of 60"x75"). This sister in-law prefers florals, pastels (with a few exceptions on certain colors), and I had a great stash to work from. I was able to pull together these colors (with the final approval of colors from her):

(not pictured here is a black on black color that I thought would finish off the 12th color)

I got to work (not really straight away) cutting all the little squares out of these colors and then the different sizes of the white.

I think the white was the most difficult to cut out because I needed 3 different sizes (2 different block sizes and then strips). Next, the instructions said to draw a line diagonally on half the accent colors.

I then pinned the diagonal lined squares to the big squares...

And the rest of the squares with the small squares and the strips and set up an assembly line again to chain piece all these and press them. The big squares with the little accent colors would be sewn ON the line drawn (not a 1/4" in).

Then cutting the excess off and leaving 1/4" from the seam.

All stacked neatly.

And pressed open. 

And here's the quick picture of how it would go:

(after seam allowance, everything lines up- don't you worry).

I chain pieced the top and bottom and then added the middle row, lining up as best as I could so the white and accent color meet. I have to admit, I'm no longer that perfectionist that I was when I was doing the baby pinwheel quilt.

(see, it lined up better- this is BEFORE I sewed the top to the middle to the bottom).

This is the quilt top laid out before sewing the sashings and rows and blocks together:

Now I have to be honest and tell you this was not the original set up. I had laid them out with like colors in one row (as much as possible) and then turned to my 4 yr old daughter and said "Ok; which blocks should we move?" and this is what SHE came up with. She's got such a great eye!

 We decided that the stencil theme for this quilt would be flowers (as this Aunt is into florals). This first one going on the border,

And this one going in the four corners of the blocks. Don't worry- I have a plan for the middle of the block and the sashing in-between the blocks.

Sewing the rows together!

And the quilt top all FINISHED!

An example of how the stencils would be (I broke down and bought a new marker so I wouldn't need to use paper again). This is a corner block so it has patterns on the outside border and in the 4 corners of the block. 

For the middle of the block, I decided that I would sew on the line to outline the "+" mark and that for the inside sashing, I would outline the grayish square. Now, to show you the beginnings of the quilting:

(Don't worry- the blue will come off)

Back view:

(weird lighting around the house but I hope you get the idea).

(You can faintly see the plus mark "+" in the middle of this)

Starting on the border!

So beautiful.

All done and ready to bind!

I decided on this sky blue for the binding. I use 2 1/2" strips for binding.

Full view before trimming the excess of for the binding.

Binding started and finished in less than an hour. I did a zig-zag stitch (not much selection on my machine).

After the wash with the color catcher. So beautiful.

The back view. This was my first time making the backing (I'm usually able to find a sheet and never had to do that).

Zoomed in a bit.

Zoomed by the border.

Penny smiling and showing this off. She is SUCH A HAM!

Close up on the front.

This was a fun quilt to make. I would say that it took about 10 days again from start to finish but I do admit that I had to stop working on it from Tuesday through Friday to do a baby quilt (that'll be the next post right after this one). So if you don't count those days I had to stop, it was about 10 days. I'll be shipping it out tomorrow (missed the post for today) and I hope it fines her Auntie very happy.