Baby Quilt Fabrics for Layla

We have a new granddaughter arriving soon...and her mama and other grandmother (the interior designer) have selected fabrics for her nursery.  I now have a package of fabrics to use in designing and making a quilt for little Layla!

Looks like a lovely garden theme in soft pastel colors.  I will use these plus, hopefully, lots more that I pull from my stash.  Butterflies, birds, flowers...some of my favorite things!

Not sure it will be finished by her arrival around September 8, but I am glad to know the theme and color palette so I can get started!

This little one is looking forward to being a big sister!

Baby Girl Quilt

I interrupted my art quilt "flower gardening" yesterday to quilt a lovely baby quilt for my friend Carolyn. It is one of my favorite patterns, Yellow Brick Road. The fabrics are soft pinks, creams, tans, and browns. It seems many new moms are choosing more non-traditional palettes for little girl's nurseries these days.

Since Yellow Brick Road is such a linear design, I like to soften it with curvy quilting, and for a baby girl, I went all out with free-motion feathers, flowers, curls, and a little heart here and there.

These fabrics all have a lovely, silky "hand" or feel. They are from our local quilt shop, Quilts Like Crazy. I can't tell you how lovely they were to quilt, especially after dealing with some of the tough, non-traditional fabrics in the Blazing Stars quilt project I recently finished.

Today is going to be so windy. We have turned over the rocking chairs on the front porch and already retrieved the flag that flew off our house and was working its way toward the woods. I hope the power does not go off!

Why I Make Quilts, Part 5

Here is baby Shelby on her Yellow Brick Road quilt. I think she likes it! I love pictures of babies on their quilts!

I still have two customer quilts to finish before Christmas. One is another die-cut flower applique quilt, which I nearly finished yesterday. Will take pics soon!

Another Baby Girl Quilt

I actually finished sewing on the binding and label for this baby quilt, and am ready for its reveal!

Yes, it is another quilt from the Yellow Brick Road pattern by Atkinson Designs. I really must buy some more of their patterns since I love this one so much. Actually, I have the Lucky Stars pattern, too, but although I have quilted at least three of those for others, I have not made it myself.

This quilt is for a new baby girl, who caused her mama all kinds of problems during her pregnancy and decided to be born quite early. I'm sure she did not mean to...she certainly looks sweet to me, although we have not met yet.

Her mama was raised on a farm, so I found a fabric in my stash with gardening tools, carrots, and things like that. I also used up the last of my Jennifer Sampou Flower Market fabric, which I have had for about fourteen years and just love.

The alert reader will also recognize some of the same fabrics left over from Lacy's quilt. When I make Yellow Brick Road quilts, I always have partial blocks left over because I just don't count how many strips I have cut and sewn. Too scientific!

Anyway, with a farm theme, there just had to be a cow!

Again, I used some of the designs from Laura Lee Fritz's book, 250 Continuous Line Quilting Designs.

And lots of my own quilted flowers and butterflies.

So, who is this quilt for?

There is a label on the pieced back...

which Blogger insists on rotating sideways, for some reason...

I traced the flowers from the print I used for the binding. This label is all done in Fabrico Markers and Identi-Pen.

Hope you like your quilt, little baby Shelby!

Quilting for Little Girls

Just finished up two more "girly" quilts for a new customer's granddaughters. Can you believe these are her first two quilts? She should enter a "My First Quilt" competition. Both are from the same pattern, made with very charming Moda floral fabrics. And both have scalloped edges! I never tried a scalloped edge until I had been quilting for more than twenty-five years.

I would advise anyone contemplating a scalloped edge to mark the scallops prior to quilting, but cut them after. It was a little hard to baste down those curvy edges.

On the next quilt, I remembered that I have basting spray, so I used that to hold down the scalloped edges. This worked great- much less fullness and rippling to tame.

I also thought it would be helpful to put a design that followed the curve around the outer border, so I did a quick informal feather.

The rest is all swirls, flowers, leaves, and hearts. My favorite kind of quilting again!

A Quilt for Lacy

I finished one of my own quilts yesterday. Yes, for a baby girl again...my great-niece, Lacy.

This is another Yellow Brick Road quilt, with some of my favorite fabrics. There are two different hummingbird fabricssome coordinated fabrics from a pack I bought at a quilt show, and some of my last hand-dyed fabric, which was supposed to be scarlet but looks like salmon or light coral to me.

I referred to Suzanne Earley's Meandering Magic book again, and used a Hearts and Ribbons meander. I had some space in between the meanders that I filled in with feathers, flowers, and of course, the baby's name, Lacy.

Since her name is Lacy, she had to have something lacy on her quilt...how about this eyelet lace ruffle? Nice and soft. I found it at Mary Jo's Cloth Store a couple weeks ago.

The back fabric looks like a hand-dye, but it's not. I love this soft color.

Now to make the label, and it will be ready for my precious new niece to cuddle.

Another Quilt for a Baby Girl

Yesterday I quilted this pretty quilt for a new baby girl. My friend Carolyn asked about the colors for the baby's room, and was directed to a retail store that carried the furnishings she picked out. When Carolyn went to the store, she was given a wallpaper border sample to help choose colors and designs. When she brought me the quilt, she gave me the sample to use as quilting inspiration if it would help. Didn't she do a great job picking out fabrics to match the wallpaper? Lots of polka dots and flowers.
Carolyn added some machine-embroidered motifs to some of the fabric blocks.

Here is the whole quilt laid out on my kitchen table.

I was able to incorporate the flower and leaf designs into my free-motion quilting.

I did not want to sew through her embroidery, because it was very thick- must have stabilizer behind the stitching. So I just went around.

The quilting shows up well on the woven pink-and-white stripe back. I used a light pink Signature cotton thread, and Warm and Natural cotton batting.

Next up: one of the charity quilts for Quilts on Wheels that Carolyn made at our sew-in day in July. I think hers has snowmen! Hope they don't melt, since it will be in the nineties again today.