I made a quilt for my friend's new baby last year. A quilt that is loved and used every day. I've been told that my friend's husband showed the quilt to all visitors. When a little brother arrived, of course I wanted to make another. He needed one of his own. But, as the maker, it had to live up to the success of the first quilt. I did a modified log cabin block that I picked up from a class on Creativebug, Modern Log Cabin Quilting. The pattern was for a table runner. I did sixteen blocks for a top that was 48" square before long arm quilting. The original design used buttons for the center of the block. I substituted fussy cut circles for the centers, with prints of dogs, flowers, bugs and birds. The piece was long arm machine quilted with a fun pattern of intersecting rounded squares called Mach 1. I like it so much that I want to use it in a Scrappy Trip Along quilt that I have working for me.
My rules for baby quilts pretty much apply to all of my quilting work.
1. Sharp Contrast. I pretty much like this in all of my color work, knitting included. What I love about quilting is that it also is a play of color and pattern.
2. Use collections. I collect small cuts of fabrics I love. Usually no longer than a yard. Exceptions are prints that I might want to use on a quilt back. The only real exception was the Tammis Keefe dog fabric that I purchased entire bolts of. Many of the fabrics used in this quilt were in the first quilt, and I made a point to include fabrics that my friend said she loved from the first.
3. Lots of things for a child to look at. This quilt, and the first, has all manner of letters, numbers, animals, birds, and bugs in the printed fabrics.
4. Boys can like flowers. I don't shy away from florals in quilts for boys or men.
More of this quilt, and more rules in posts to follow.
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