A Little Plus Baby Quilt and a Little Bit More

The Little Plus Baby Quilt, and at last, open water! 

     A friend had a little baby boy, and I wanted to create a little quilt for him.  I have been working to organize my stash and have a box of 5 inch square pieces. I pulled out blue, yellow and red baby scraps, and tried to decide what would work. 

My box of 5 inch squares.  Some are older Aunt Grace fabrics, and the three little pigs fabric that has been used in many earlier baby quilts! 

       Last year, I made a  plus quilt for my son out of left-over homespun, and decided that would work for this little quilt. Since I didn't have 5 squares of each scrap, so I needed to color a graph to figure out what I really needed.  

My little chart.  It turns out I like using colored pencils to plan!

Since this was a small quilt, I just put the squares on the dining room table. 

I love yellow binding and I love my new Clover clips.  I used my walking foot and quilted straight lines alternating with curvy lines at about 1/2 inch intervals.

The finished quilt, with my trusty quilt holder!   The finished quilt is about 31 x 40.

The back is a sweet blue fabric I have had for ages. 

     This little baby boy has a big sister.  I decided to send along a little bag, using some of the same fabrics, along with some more girly coordinating squares.  My stash busting efforts also include cutting 2 1/2 inch strips.  I pulled out some of those to cut 40 little squares.

I sewed the little charm squares together to make a rectangle.  I added some florals as well.

I quilted the rectangles with my walking foot, at quarter inch intervals from the seams.

The back of the quilting.

I used the same fabric from the quilt back for the inside lining on the bag.

A close up of this sweet little bag.

I think the quilt and the bag look so cute together.   

     Glad that spring is here after a long rough winter.

Take care,
Gretchen

Sunshine & Science Baby Quilt

     One of my nieces, a scientist, was expecting a baby girl, and I immediately thought about making a quilt using the science critter fabric from my daughter's computer case project. I pulled all sorts of other fabrics from my stash to see what might work with that fabric.  I was a bit torn, because the fabrics I was considering were not the traditional pinks.

The fabric pull - I love all of these fabrics, but  too many and too busy for the quilt I had in mind.  I still have some three little pigs fabric, which I have been trying to use up for years!   Another time, perhaps.

The fabric finalists.  I took my color cues from the floral at the end (turquoise, red, deep yellow and white) all of which were found in the science critter fabric.

    Last year I finished my turquoise triangle quilt, and wanted to try something a little different. I wanted to try bigger triangles, and used the template from this See Kate Sew triangle tutorial.  

Laying out the triangles on my design "wall".  I  pieced some flannel together, and use binder clips on an old wooden folding screen.  Not perfect, but it works.   You can see in the one corner that I was still trying to use the turquoise three little pigs fabric, but it really wasn't working for me.  

This fabric is too cute!

I also quite like this little bird fabric!  (There is some pink!)

                      The flower fabric.  This was a bit thinner than the others, so I made sure to use white batting.

     Somehow, I failed to fully follow the instructions (my fault, not the tutorial), and didn't get nice pointy ends for the triangles, but they are all the same, and look fine to me.

     I also tried a new technique with the batting.  For Christmas, the trusty quilt holder gave me a basket of notions from the quilt shop, with a tag that it was the "quilter's survival kit!" Among the items was a product to fuse batting.  I had two pieces of white Warm and White which, if put together, would fit this quilt perfectly. 

     I overlapped the two pieces slightly, and taking note of the width of the tape, I cut a gentle curving line.  That made it easier to have the pieces fit snugly together.  I then followed the instructions,and it seemed to work well.  I couldn't feel the tape when I was quilting. 

The gentle curving line

     I used an all over loopy quilting, with white Aurifil thread. I think this is a happy quilting motif.

     I had a great Ikea fabric for the backing, but while I was happily doing my loops, I neglected to check the back.  Ooops!   Luckily,  it was an easy fix!

          I used a bright yellow batik for the binding.   The finished quilt is 33 1/2 x 47 inches.  

My trusty quilt holder braving the cold.

Lake Erie, nearly fully frozen, in March! 

Welcome to the world, baby Arwen!  Stay warm! 

Can't wait for spring! 

Take care,
Gretchen