Two Baby Quilts

My friend, Julie, who doesn't sew, asked if I'd make her friend a baby quilt for her shower in August.  I said I'd love to.  Baby quilts are usually more fun to make because they're smaller and faster, for one thing.  Plus, they're usually cuter, with more fun fabrics.  We decided on a pattern and set a date to go fabric shopping.  We met at Jackman Fabrics, a very large store.  Needless to say, Julie had a case of overstimulation and too many fabrics and color choices.  Once we had the focus fabric, the rest fell into place.  I washed and dried the fabric and was ready to start.  However, cutting into someone else's fabric is a little more stressful than cutting into my own.  So, since the pattern was fairly simple, I decided to make a test sample first.  I'd gotten some coordinated fabrics in May that I was anxious to use and this seemed the perfect time.

This is the main part of the top.  I've auditioned several fabrics for borders and decided on dark blue, purple, and a stripe.  I'm trying to use stripes in every quilt I make. 

I don't usually wash incoming fabric unless I know it's by a designer or company known for fabric that shrinks.  Nancy Halvorsen is a designer who puts out beautiful fabrics, but they do shrink and I always wash those.  And I have another designer now to add to that list.  The yellow background fabric was designed by Sue Penn.  It was fine when I steam pressed the center with the green star.  It looked so nice, I decided to spray starch it and make it perfect.  As soon as the spray hit those yellow squares, they shrank a quart inch right before my eyes like shrink wrap and a heat gun.  I had to rip them out, shrink the rest of the yellow fabric, cut new squares and replace them and all the other yellow squares.  The triangles for the star points were somehow not as bad and I elected to keep them.  The original pattern was just the square with the three rounds of star points.  I added a top and bottom row of piano-key borders to make it rectangular.

This is with all the borders on.  I really like the way it turned out and was ready to cut out Julie's quilt.

My sister was in town last weekend and brought Mom over Monday.  We had a regular sweat shop going.  Sue was cutting, I was sewing, and Mom was pressing.  Most of the top was done in a day.  I put the last two borders and the name on today. Thanks a million, Sue.

I didn't think to take a photo before the borders were started. They make such a difference, it's fun to see the comparison. Julie asked if I could put the baby's name on the quilt.  It's a boy and will be named Chase.

Here's Chase's quilt with his name appliqued at the bottom.  The actual quilt is a little brighter than this.  The photos are always darker here than they are when I edit and crop them.  I lighten them, but sometimes not enough.

Quilting and binding shouldn't take too long, and it will be all done.

I hope you like it, Julie!

 A close up of the center.