The other day, my daughter called and started a question with “Please say no if you don’t have time!“
And I know all of you are yelling at the screen….. “SAY NO….SAY NO!!“
But being a good mother (don’t ask my kids for their input), I listened to her question.
One of the couples that she and her husband are closest to are about to have their first baby.
Do you know what’s coming?
She asked if I had time to make a baby quilt, and of course, she would pay me for my time and materials.
We agreed that I would do it if I could, but that I didn’t have to give her an answer right away
Well, you know what happened. Jenny told me that their theme was boats and whales. Of course, I had to Google it
One of the images that I found was a pattern called Explore” by Magic Little Dreams
It looked relatively easy, at least in that 2-inch picture on my screen, so I sent it to my daughter and asked if it would be appropriate…….
She answered in the affirmative.
I purchased the pattern and was horrified to realize that it was a pieced design and that there were 400 pieces in the baby quilt.
Not only that, most of the seams were angled, and the design would not work well if those seams didn’t line up perfectly!!
I drew out two of the blocks to solidify my suspicions….
At this point, I was shaking my head and saying…….
I really liked the movement in the quilt, the sprinkling of fish along the way, and the very cute whale at the bottom. So, how can I simplify it ??
My first thought was to make the design bigger so that it didn’t require as many pieces of fabric. But there would still be angled seams that would HAVE to match.
My second thought was to fuse those fabrics down rather than piecing them.
WE HAVE A WINNER!!
I loved the movement the designer had achieved with the pieced blocks, and decided to emulate that with smooth curves … And Wonder Under, of course!
I decided to design the quilt in the same manner that she had, putting two sets of blocks together, and having the waves undulate between those two sets of blocks.
OKAY….I simplified it somewhat. What else can I do?
Instead of making the quilt interior 40 inches wide, I chose 30 inches, and instead of 50 inches tall I went for 40.
If I kept her 5-inch width, I could do three sets of two blocks to make each row of the design,
But that would still mean that I would have to sew these blocks together, making sure that all of the curves met up perfectly.
NOPE!!
OK new plan… Let’s make it in strips that are 30 inches wide, and make the strip set 8 inches tall, something like this……
As I look at what I’ve drawn, I am thinking that the middle strip needs to be a little narrower.
I will offset these as she has done in the pattern to give more interest to the waves.
I think that THIS quilt is entirely doable!!
SO…..
Is this the same quilt?
Not really, but the idea came from her design and I will ALWAYS give her credit!!
Is it a quilt that I can finish by the September deadline?
Absolutely!!
Of course, I immediately started pulling fabrics…
….but, if I am going to keep this cute for a baby, I think that it needs some solids and surprisingly, I don’t have many solid blues! So even though I prefer to work from my stash, I’m thinking that a trip to the fabric store is in my future…..after all…. my daughter is paying!!🤣🤣
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Yesterday I showed the start of a Pooh baby quilt, leaving it at this stage…..
I had sewn sets of strips together and cut them into two patch blocks……
….and then sewed those into 4-patches that I placed around the blue border…..
I liked how it looked but felt that I needed to bring some more red into the design. I started trying an outside border…..
…..but decided that it would look better with an inside border.
My problem was that the side had to be divisible by 2 and since I hadn’t really planned my borders first, I ended up trimming off 1/8th inch pieces until I got it to the correct size.
I started adding the squares and loved how it was looking…..
I added the two side borders and…..
IT WAS FINISHED!!!!
It should be fun and easy to quilt and then it can be shipped off!!!
Come back on Friday for the quilting!!
Now a question for you….. what type of quilt do you make when you need a quick baby quilt???
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I have another baby quilt to make and this time the theme is “Winnie The Pooh”!!
I started out looking for fabric that I could use and do a simple pieced design, but apparently, Pooh is not in vogue right now, so I had to look for another idea.
I found a photo of Pooh bear and decided to use that as my inspiration……
I started out with the applique and quickly decided that he needed a lot of outlining, so out came the Fabrico markers and Pooh was born……
Now I needed to add some borders to make him larger. I was happy with the first blue one…..
….and now wanted to add some nine patches around the edge.
I had a stack of fabrics that I thought might go with the design….
….and started out by cutting a 2.5-inch strip from each fabric.
I then cut that strip down into as many 8.5-inch units as I could get from one strip.
I randomly (well….mostly randomly) selected sets of strips and sewed them together.
About this time, I decided that 4-patches would be okay, which meant that I didn’t have as much cutting and sewing to do…..always a good thing!!!!
It was bedtime so I left it hanging on the design wall to conquer the next day.
Come back tomorrow and see the finished product….I am really happy with it!!!!
In this blog, I post stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.
