Baby Love

My cousin is having a baby any time now, so it was up to me to provide Baby Girl Z with a cozy quilt!

I found this great, girly selection of Cosmo Cricket fabrics & added some coordinating Kona solids and a couple of coordinating prints. I used a mint green flannel as my background & backing fabric. When I bought the Girl Friday fabrics, I thought I'd just be making a charm quilt or something like that, but I remembered a great block called Love In A Mist that I'd seen on the Modify Tradition blog and decided to use that as a jumping off point for this baby quilt.

I made a giant block, like I did with this quilt and I turned a couple of the half-square triangles in a different direction from the original block.

The quilt top came together quickly (as you can imagine) and I pretty much love it. I decided to quilt it with random curved & straight lines and am currently in the process of sewing on the binding that is made of leftover strips of the Girl Friday fabrics.

The edges look funny because the binding is stitched on to the front but not finished yet. The edges REALLY aren't wonky like that. The quilt actually ended up as a 39" square. A pretty good size for a newborn. I just hope I get the motivation to finish the binding in time for the baby shower on Saturday!

A carpenter, like Jesus.

My brother builds cabinets for a living and one time my sister-in-law told someone that he was "a carpenter, like Jesus". It still makes me laugh as I type it.

Anyway, I have been planning to make a quilt for them and when I saw the Avairy line of fabrics by Joel Dewberry, especially the awesome faux bois, I felt like I couldn't pass some of them up. I've been taking my time gathering bits and pieces of the Sparrows in Almond and the woodgrain as I found them online.

SO, after some new fabrics arrived in the mail today and I dug through my stash, here's what I'm considering:

Option 1 contains greens and a bit of yellow along with the browns and oranges from the sparrow fabric. I'm not sure whether the green adds some life to the party or comes out of nowhere...I just LOVE those yellow flowers on green. And for the record, some of those browns look REALLY dark. In reality, the dark brown that you see is a chocolate brown, not black!

Option 2 takes out the greens and is only oranges and browns. I don't know what to do...I'm sure I'll decide, but for now, the piles will sit nearby, unsure of their destiny! Most of the fabrics are Joel Dewberry fabrics, but they're from several different lines. There is also some Freebird by MoMo, Amy Butler polka dots, an Erin McMorris print, and some Denyse Schmidt (KJR & Hope Valley).

Now I'm off to bind a quilt and finish watching The Bachelorette! I seriously didn't intend to get sucked in...

Babyville

It appears as if I live in Babyville. Everyone is pregnant or just had a baby. Everyone.

In that spirit, I thought I'd show you one of the first quilts that I ever made, which was for a baby. I started quilting because I wanted to make a quilt for my nephew who joined us in this world in January. My first attempt was a quilt kit from Joann's. Boo. It didn't even have batting or binding. It was a right-sides-together then flip kind of a deal. Seriously, BOO. So I made my niece a quilt first (another post for another day) and then I got to work on Baby H's quilt. His mom and dad (my brother & sis-in-law) aren't very "cutesy" people. They have a very vintage, cool, different style and when I found this awesome 30's reproduction print, I couldn't resist.

Isn't it precious? It became the focus fabric and I added some coordinating fabrics (Amy Butler seeds in blue and orange, a gold solid, some awesome navy polka dots and an orange print whose origins are unknown) and used them to make pinwheels with brown flannel. 

It's the softest, coziest quilt for a January baby (even though it's not very practical NOW, seeing as it was humid and gross outside today).

sorry the picture is sideways...I forgot to rotate!

It's made up of 20 9x9 blocks and finished, measures about 36x45. I bound it with some American Jane Pez and some yellow stars fabric that I got from Joann's.

Aside from the baby that's laying on the quilt (isn't he just the CUTEST?!), my favorite part of it is the back, which I didn't take any pictures of. It's mostly just solid brown flannel, but in the center, I pieced a giant (22"across) whirlygig out of 4 of the fabrics from the top. I love it and Baby H and his parents love it and he actually uses it, which makes me happier than anything!