Emma’s quilt

In an effort to link to my completed quilt projects on the left sidebar of this Arts & Crafts section, I discovered that I had forgotten to share yet another quilt that was completed during the Great Blog Drought of 2010.

So here she is:

I love the way this quilt turned out; it was one of those projects that I was a little unsure of until I put it all together.

My first cousin Ashleigh and her husband Derek welcomed their first baby – a little girl named Emma – on April 7th.  We had a baby shower for her in May and that was the occasion for this quilt.

Emma, of course, is a doll with such fine feminine features; I can’t go on another sentence without sharing a picture of her with you.

I really love this next picture!  It’s of Emma in her 5-generation picture with Ashleigh, her dad David (my uncle), our Grandma Bev, and GG:

So now that you know who this pretty little lady is, I’ll get back to the quilt. 

I asked Ashleigh if she wanted any certain colors or styles for the quilt and she thought pinks and browns were nice.  I think they are nice, too.

I went to my local quilt shop, Adel Quilting & Dry Goods, and found the perfect fabric (in the center of the picture):

Not only was it brown with cute polka dots, some of the polka dots were heart-shaped.  Too precious.  But apparently, many others thought so, too, and that’s why the only remnant of the fabric in the whole shop was a single, solitary fat quarter.  A fat quarter, to the uninitiated, is a 18” x 22” cut of fabric.

Even with the small amount of fabric I had to work with, I still knew that I needed to make it the focal point of the quilt.  So, I picked out several other fabrics I already owned that coordinated with the brown polka dot fabric and set out to make it work.

As you can see, I set the brown polka dot fabric apart from the coordinating prints by surrounding it with white fabrics.  You can’t see it really well in the picture, but all of those white fabrics are different.  I love using as many fabrics as possible in a quilt.

I used the coordinating prints to act as a sashing of sorts, but I also wanted to add interest by offsetting the blocks, creating a staggered effect.

Really, even though this quilt did take a lot of sewing, the layout and construction could not be simpler: it was 480 – 2 1/2” squares arranged by colors to show a pattern.  No difficult sewing with weird shapes or seam intersections, just straightforward, honest to goodness straight seams.  It would be very appropriate for a beginner.  (This is so appropriate right now.)

I quilted it using freehand spirals like I have for a lot of quilts recently and again – it turned out pretty well.  The swirly pattern is pretty universal and looks good on many different quilt tops.

I had just a few lengths of the focus fabric left by the time I was done so I cut them into binding strips, added it to a solid brown binding strips that I already had, and used the combo to complete the binding on the quilt.

Hmmm… have I made any more quilts that I’m forgetting about?!  I think this was the last one… I haven’t quilted in a few months now and I miss it so much.  I hope to get up and running again in the near future.