Quilt Consultation Results

Back in March, I shared a little quilt consultation album I had sent to a friend, to help her choose what she and her husband would want for a baby quilt.

The album was a hit at her baby shower, and it was passed around and conversed over, and if you ask me, that is a good thing in itself.  At showers, it’s nice for guests who don’t know each other to have a topic of conversation.

Husband and wife of course did not agree on exactly what they would want, and I think were even a little reluctant to express their opinions.  But I assured them I love a design challenge, so I asked them to let me know their favorites, and I would find a way to combine them.  (Or possibly make two quilts.)

Here is what they sent:

The husband’s favorite.

The wife’s favorite.

The dad’s favorite was made from orphan blocks I had gotten from a friend when she moved, and that quilt had been donated.  So he was Team Traditional.

The mom went more into the Modern area.  Her favorite was one of three I had made, based on this quilt from KatyQuilts, and it was actually still available, but they were looking for a different color palette.  She said, “If the pinks in that quilt were blues, it would be perfect.”

And then she said the magic words, “I trust your artistic judgment implicitly.”

So here is what I came up with!

baby quilt with squares

The back has large squares, bordered with small squares.

baby quilt with leaf shapes

The front has simple leaf shapes on a gray background.

The leaves are based on a table runner from Alexandra Ledgerwood’s Improvising Tradition.  She made the same scrappy leaves, but she sewed curved seams to piece them into her background fabric.  I didn’t trust my sewing skills to do that, so I fused them on top of the background fabric, and then stitched around them.

blue leaf made from scraps

green leaf made from scraps

I used Wonderfil Invisafil 100-weight polyester for the stitching around the fused applique leaves.  It gave a flatter edge to the applique than the usual ridge from 50-weight thread, and I really liked the look.

The only bad thing was that on one leaf, I realized I had left the fusible paper in place on the back of the leaf!  It crunched and crinkled, and I had to take that leaf off.  Then, ripping out tiny little stitches of 100-weight thread took forever, and there was no re-using that leaf!

And right after I removed it, I thought, “I should have just said I left it in there on purpose, to let the baby enjoy that crunching noise.”

My plan was to place the leaves perfectly, so that when I quilted around them, the shadow of the leaf would appear in the color block on the opposite side.

block with leaf outline

I wanted each big square to show the outline of a leaf.

This turned out to be much trickier than I had expected.  The only thing that saved me was that I used Quilters’ Dream cotton batting, and unlike their wool batting, it was so thin, I could feel seam allowances from one side, right through it.  I had the back with the big squares basted to the batting.  I placed the solid gray fabric on top.  I could hold all those layers up to the window, and see through them, to see where to align a leaf with a square.

I chose gray thread for quilting, to help blend the colors together.

So, the baby is here (and it is a girl), and the quilt has been delivered, and it was well-received!  I loved making this quilt, and I have enough extra leaves, to make myself a wall hanging.

Category : Quilting
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