Baby Love

Just popping in quickly today so share this lovely picture of Jackson.  He is the proud owner of my Baby F Quilt and today he's a month old!  His Momma shared this photo online and I just had to share it with you here today.

It's the best feeling in the world to see something you made being used and loved.  

I've been busy quilting and posting to Instagram and hope to have something to share with you here soon!

Baby F Quilt {a finished quilt}

Remember this quilt I was working on?  I finished it back in mid-August just before baby arrived on August 22nd..  The new mom and dad, family of my husbands, commissioned me to make them something special for their first baby, a boy.  

The new mom has a great eye for color and suggested a color palette of Mint, Aqua, Navy, White, Grey, and Apple Green.  We looked at a few patterns so that I could get an idea of what she liked and didn't like and then she basically let me run with it from there.

I used a simple equilateral triangle pattern, cutting my pieces at 5 inches tall.  Once I was done cutting I had a quilt top done in less than a day.  I quilted it the next day using a simple light blue thread echoed along the diagonals.  It's bound is a solid dark green that picks up on some of the darker fabrics in the quilt itself.

The quilt is backed in this beautiful wood print fabric.  I'm not sure who the manufacture is but it was too perfect to pass up for this quilt.  I snagged it a few years ago at a large fabric de-stash sale in Manchester, NH at a great price.   The grey of the logs coordinates perfectly with their gray crib and the overall feel of the piece really helps play into the woodland themed nursery.  

I also made a coordinated bumper for baby's crib to match the quilt.  I didn't get a ton of good photos of it before it was gifted though.  I used a solid minty-aqua for one side of the bumper and a piece of Lotto Jansdotter for Joann's Fabric on the other side.  Out of everything I made, the bumper took the longest.  It was over 160 inches long and was quilted using my walking foot roughly every quarter-inch.  I used scraps from the top to make the ties.

I'm so happy that the new Mom and Dad asked me to make something to be a part of their son's life.  It was a lot of fun to work on this quilt for them and I hope that they will get many years of use out of it.  

Linking up with Caroline at Sew Can She for Show off Saturday.

Satisfying Quilts

Good Morning!  I had the pleasure of spending the better half of Saturday working on a baby quilt for my husbands cousins wife.  They are expecting their first child together and contacted me to ask if I'd make them a baby quilt.  Obviously I agreed!  I'm only sharing some progress pictures because I want the finished quilt to be a surprise for them.

When we first talked, the mama-to-be had a few ideas about designs and colors and we made a Pinterest board to collect some ideas, but basically left the rest up to me.  She asked for a chevron or triangle pattern in the colors: Mint, Aqua, Navy, White, Grey, and Apple Green.

I pulled some fabric and shared it with her before I started and she was thrilled.  It's a mixture of Cotton+Steel, Lotta Jansdotter, and some printed fabric from Modern Yardage.  (On a side note: the Modern Yardage fabrics suggest prewashing.  The colors faded pretty significantly.  Not sure if I would try fabric from them again.)  In less than an hour I had a lovely stack of triangles ready to sew up.

I laid the pieces out into rows on the floor.  A quick black and white photo ensured that the different values were spread out and I was ready to sew.

I just love how quickly these types of quilts sew up.  Especially in a baby size.  By about 4 PM I had a finished quilt top ready to go!

On Sunday afternoon I pin basted the quilt, using two layers of batting to help make it extra soft and cuddly.  In less than 2 hours I was able to finish about 75% of the quilting.  I'm using a grey/blue aurifil thread and echo quilting on each side of the diagonal lines.  Quick.  Easy.  Satisfying. 

I had hoped to finish this up this week and use the rest of the time until her baby shower to make a bumper (I'm hoping to channel my inner Rachel) and a few other surprises for the parents-to-be but life threw a curve ball at us.

On Monday, my husband was hit by a truck while cycling and is currently in the hospital recovering from arm surgery and a partially collapsed lung.  He is in good spirits but tired and sore.  He has no broken bones and just some scrapes and bruises besides the lung and arm.  We acknowledge how incredibly lucky he is.  All things considered, this is the best case scenario in a bad situation.  They expect he'll make a full recovery but for someone accustomed to being highly active this will be very hard for him.  In the meantime your prayers would be appreciated.

I'm linking up with this weeks WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.