Finished baby quilt

I finished the green wedge baby quilt last night. I struggled finding a good binding fabric and came up short on my first 5 choices. Since the whole thing was made from fabric in my stash and some pieced together batting, I wasn't going to let the binding break my make-do streak. I ended up with a fabric with a good shade of green that I initially rejected because of the bright aqua blue. I realized when re-trialing it that the blue wasn't a bad match and would be less noticeable in the 3/8" that shows on the binding and I'm happy that it's done.

The quilting is very simple with 45 degree diagonal lines in one direction. I marked out 4 of the lines through the center circles of the blocks and then eyeballed the others in between. Although I'm not a fan of straight quilting like this, it took little time and works well.

It's definitely on the big side for a baby (51" x 37"), but since few parents actually use blankets on newborns, it will hopefully be useful (and loved) well into childhood.

This one is being gifted tomorrow at lunchtime, so it's just in time.

New project - a baby quilt

I've been flagging a little on the quilting front. Yes, there have been round robins and Block Lotto blocks, and a few other bits and pieces, but nothing that qualifies as a "project". This is partly due to a natural winding down on my part as I've packed away my quilting frame and an (hopefully) preparing to pack out a lot more in preparation for house renovations in the new year. Another limitation is that I am determined to use up some of the fabrics in my stash and frankly, I don't like some of them or at least I don't know what to do with them.

But creative salvation came in the form of a pregnant co-worker. I haven't known her that long, but she is sweet and has been such a great help in recent weeks. I thought a baby quilt was just the thing to get me motivated to do something small and manageable.

Ages ago I toyed with the idea of a doing a modern inspired Dresden quilt. Some of the Monday Modern girls recently attended a Modern Wedge workshop with Kathy Doughty and have been making some beautiful blocks. In my usual way, I could not just follow that pattern, so I did some online browsing and designed a block that suited my purposes.

I did a few things to make this block: I only used 12 wedges (30-degree angle) which meant less pieces to deal with and a better size wedge to feature the fabrics. Half of the wedges are in the feature fabrics and the others are cut from a strip of white with a 1" lime green insert. I put the lime green in a different position on each white strip and then cut the triangles by flip-flopping them to end up with 2 sets of white wedges from each strip. I used a similar method for my Hexa-bee quilt.

The other thing I did was add setting triangles to the corners to square up the block so that I only had to trim a bit off.

The feature fabrics are from my stash. My friend does not know the gender of her baby, so I had to pick something that would work for a boy or girl. My girl loves blue and green and I seem to have many blue/green animal prints in my drawers. Once I picked them out, the green was a natural partner and I was off and running.

I have made 6 blocks that each finish at 15-1/2". I think that 31" X 46-1/2" is not a bad size, but I wonder if a border or sashing might be needed to break things up a bit. Or maybe just a border to make it a touch bigger.

I admit that I like these blocks so much that I was tempted to keep them for myself and start something else for my friend. I know that I can always replicate this block, but I never do the same thing twice, so it seems unlikely.

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced.