Have I mentioned that I am going to be aunt very shortly? I can’t wait. My older sister is having her first baby just weeks before me. Two new little cousins!
By the way, here in New England we pronounce aunt like it is spelled, not like “ant” the bug. There is a “u” in there, right?
Anyway, my mom and younger sister were brave and sweet enough to throw a joint shower for me and Holly this past weekend, so I made a little something for our niece-or-nephew-to-be (it’s still a surprise).
That’s right…goodbye pastels and hello bright, modern colors!
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Holly had used an adorable apple print in her nursery, so I designed the quilt around that using deep browns and bright greens.
And, I was a little crazy by braving this without a pattern. Well, to be fair, I saw a pattern that I liked online (the site is an amazing quilting resource, by the way) and then I decided that I could figure out how to make it without ordering a pattern (I’m cheap like that).
So, being the nerd I am, I turned to my trusty graph paper and sketched out the whole quilt and the pieces needed to complete one square. I even used green and brown crayons. Cool. I know.
Please ignore my elementary math on the graph paper. I’m just not that smart. But it worked for me and soon enough I had my squares made. Here they are laid out on the kitchen floor (don’t worry, I swept up Frankie’s hair first, and washed the quilt after it was complete).
As you can see, I decided to add one more row of squares to make the finished product 40″ x 48″.
Regarding finishing, I machine quilted around only the smaller squares in each block. And, I only quilted it to the batting (I used Warm & Natural batting, which I loved.)
For the back, I used this super soft Minky Dimple Dot fabric, which I now kind of want for all of the blankets in our house.
And thanks to this fantastic tutorial, I even made binding with mitred corners…
Then I hand-bound the quilt for that extra special finishing touch. I’m sure my niece or nephew will really appreciate my handiwork.
This was actually quicker and easier than I thought it was going to be, and it was a lot of fun to see it all come together. Now I can’t wait to make one for my own little guy!
Oh, and if you are interested in any of the fabric, here is the design wall I used on Fabric.com to put together all of my color choices…
