Project: A Special Baby Girl Quilt

So, I know a TON of pregnant women in my life right now. 

This quilt is for a friend that I made when I first moved out here.

She is having a baby girl (obviously, by the post title). 

I messaged her with options and this is what we liked the best.

Final color choices:

 (you don't even WANT to know how many changes I made during the day)

I decided for fun to lay the fabrics out after I cut them to get an idea how this quilt is going to look:

And then this is half the quilt laid out on the table- NOT SEWN YET.

Thankfully, this pattern was a free download so I didn't have to do much to figure it out (although the original pattern's size would've been a finished 48.5" x 60.5" and I cut mine down making it a final size of 38.5"x 50.5"). All I did to make it the size I wanted was took 1" off each side measurement and presto! You can go to this website for the directions for how to put it together:

http://camelotfabrics.com/pdf/Q-006_MC.pdf

Pretty straight forward and REALLY fast to put together. It only took me 3 hours (with a lot of interruptions) to piece this together to get the final product of this:

*Side note if you want to make this quilt*: This particular company that does these patterns has you cut the pieces slightly larger than you need so every time I put two pieces together and then built on it, I had to trim the excess off. It only starts as a little but then by the last piece needs trimming, you're looking at some pieces that make you sad that got wasted.

So, you have to look at it as 4 blocks and two borders. Here's how the process looked-

One "block" done:

Two "blocks" done and sewn together:

All 4 "blocks" done and sewn together:

Pretty fast, right? I did keep the original picture out so I could double check my work as I pieced the blocks together. I decided that for the quilting, I would do a cool flower stippling. Here's a picture of the stencil (I got from JoAnn's):

I think this looks pretty awesome and this was a great quilt to try this on.

For the backing, I decided to keep it similar to the last quilt back (see my previous post) where it had 3 colors blocked.  I put this together with some quick advice:

And here it is all basted together:

I had to make sure that the light grey seam and the middle seam didn't line up (that's a big NO-NO in backing and quilting). So, the light grey is about 1/2" above the middle of the quilt. So close…. 

After basting this bad boy together, I went ahead and started tracing the stencil. I tried out using washable markers (in the kids' art section of the store) because the two colors I have in markers for quilting (blue and purple) wouldn't show up very well on the DARK border and dark middle colors. My mother (in all her wisdom) told me that yellow (and I found orange as well) show up fairly well (or rather, well enough to see under a light when quilting). Once it was all stenciled up, it was fairly easy to quilt (I had to go REALLY SLOW when I was on the dark colors to try to see the marker).

Back partly done:

Another view of the back: 

Front view, focused on a flower:

I decided (with much help) to use green for the binding- we really liked how it pulled from the green flower on the outer border and that the pattern on it wasn't competing with the other colors or patterns.

Being auditioned (again, you don't want to know how many colors we went through to get this):

 (See why I don't take front shots until after it's been washed- I can totally see the orange marker...)

So, I then stuck it in the washer. 

Here is the color catcher after the wash :

It was fun explaining to Penny why it turned orange. 

And best of all, ALL THE MARKER CAME OUT 

*after 2 washes- there was a little in a couple places but the second wash took it all out*!! 

(*It was my first time using the washable markers that weren't the quilting markers*)

Front:

Back:

Closer look at the back:

Front folded over:

 Folded over again:

 All folded up:

I'm delivering this quilt by Sunday to the mother-to-be. 

I hope everyone is able to zoom in on this quilting- it was fun to try something new.

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.