The Baby Quilt is DONE!

And here it is, just in time for her first birthday!

This quilt for my new granddaughter has been quite a journey!
The design process started more than a year ago (before she was even born) with research into baby quilts designs, input from my son and daughter-in-law, info about applique quilts, butterfly quilts, butterfly shapes, elephant shapes, and layout ideas, and then lots of fabric selections and rejections (well, the rejections went into my nearly non-existent stash, so that's OK).

And then, since I didn't know anything about applique, I had to take a class - this was a class given by the very talented Judy Dohm at the Stitchin' Girls Society retreat on Vashon (don't blame her for my choice of fabrics!).


Of course this was needle-turn (hand sewing) applique, and I needed to do machine applique for the baby quilt, but the basic techniques that I learned from Judy - making and marking, layering, positioning, and so on - served me well (besides, her class was just plain fun - I'll have to do more with needleturn eventually!).
I got the rest of what I needed from books (especially Mastering Machine Applique by Harriet Hargrave).

And then I started making sample blocks (the kitty helped a lot).


So here it is in process with some finished and unfinished blocks, and some blocks that would later be rejected (I've got lots of these rejects - I'm hoping I can get them to blend with each other into a different project!)


And after much sampling and many trips back to the quilt store for new/different fabrics, finally a version I could be happy with - the shapes are mostly clear, the colors and color weights are mostly balanced, and it looks whimsical and happy as well as being sweet and girly, mostly!

Not satin-stitched down yet (used a narrow band of Steam-a-Seam 2 light to hold the pieces in place) but design layout is mostly done now.

While I was working this through, however, I needed to learn how to quilt the final product (being a total beginner and all) so I took a machine quilting class (this is for using your home sewing machine to do amazing things) from Darlene Girton (great teacher - clear instruction, well organized info, encouraging and helpful) at the Quilting Loft in Seattle.

Wow did I learn a lot (and more than just these 4 samples, too!) - starting and stopping, using the walking foot (in the ditch, zigzags, rays, grids, interlocking circles), tension adjustment, dropping feed dogs and using free motion embroidery (scribbles, outlines, echos, stippling, fills) - yikes! Great class lesson book - Machine Quilting Made Easy by Maurine Noble.

So then I took another (and much more intense and scary) class over at Quiltworks Northwest in Bellevue from Harriet Hargrave and worked with marked patterns, pieced blocks, and even did a feathered wreath! Much harder, but a great class!


Whew! So back to the baby quilt - just two weeks before the party, I finally found the perfect border fabric and backing so here it is, appliques are satin stitched, blocks are sewn together, and borders are applied.

And here are some close-ups of the finished blocks with embroidered details and free motion quilting - leaves and flowers (these are not in order, so the designs will not flow from one picture to the next - go back to the beginning of the post to see the overall effect).




Then I picked out a different pattern for the border (still leaves and flowers, but different, a bit).

and here's a peek at that perfect backing fabric

And one more closeup look at a section of the quilt top (draped on the sofa)

This is a quilt of firsts for me - my first applique, my first embroidery, my first free motion quilting, and my son's first baby! I'm happy.

next up - the Free Motion Quilting Challenge from SewCalGal! If you're a quilter, it's not too late to join (actually, there's no pressure to produce, there's lots of great info and generous quilter-teachers, and it will go on all year, so give it a try!)