Baby Quilt for Sava

My latest sewing project was quilt for a friend and her new baby, Sava. As with numerous projects before, I set somewhat unrealistic expectations for myself for the deadline. I decided to make the quilt about a week before I was supposed to meet the new baby; at the time, a week seemed sufficient for a simple hand-made quilt. I had not accounted for the numerous distractions that would put off my visit to the fabric store, and when I finally made it with only 3 days on the clock a minor case of baby quilt mania set in. I had to have this color... and this texture... this design is nice... oh, I should add some personalized embroidery... so many threads... which embroidery ring?... which hand-quilting thread should I use?!?

2 hours and a very large bag later, I was ready to roll. Or stitch.


I had noticed dragonflies decorating the baby's room, so I decided to go with a hand embroidered one in the center of the quilt. This is how it looked after 4 hours :)

2 days to go, and all I had was cut fabric and part of a dragonfly. Oh my.


By day 2, my living room was feeling the heat.



After work the next day, I was ready to go again! Beau helped me to choose these colors from the decorations in Sava's room.



Frozen yogurt surprise from Beau gave me the boost I needed! :)

Sewing these pinwheels was one of the worst experiences in my life. Under the fluorescent lights of luring fabric stores these shiny blends might seem a good idea, but I do not recommend using this delicate material for something so small. Each small triangle had a base of about 2 inches, and each time I used my machine to sew the pieces they would shred to bits. Full of coffee and tiny embroidery pinpricks, I was ready to figuratively shoot myself in the face. Proceed with caution.

Gotcha!
Although I faced some difficulty with the decorative pinwheels, I learned to be happy with their whimsical lopsidedness :) Only a few more hours until we leave!
Beau is Sava's uncle, and he helped me to write out her name in Cyrillic to embroider.

I added in some reds and burnt orange to the center embroidery to spread color in layers through the quilt.

I don't have any photographs from the next several hours because, well, it was a rough night. I stayed awake through all of it eating homemade dal and drinking red bull while I finished the embroidery, assembled the layers, basted, binded, and began to quilt (I finished the hand quilting on the drive).
I used a patterned flannel backing (which doubles as the binding) and thin bamboo/cotton blend batting. I chose bamboo as it is a naturally antibacterial fiber, earth-friendly, has a low 2-3% shrinkage and can be quilted up to 8 inches. Tying is my quilting method of choice, and used a soft gold thread for the knots.

Although I was exhausted, every ounce of effort paid off when I got hours of new baby snuggles!


Congratulations to the happy family, and welcome to the world baby Sava!

Baby Quilt for Karlie

Shortly after finishing my first Summer Quilt, the family received some wonderful news- Sarah was expecting another baby girl!





As soon as I found out that this new baby was definitely a girl, I was out to the store for fabric! My sister loves bright cheerful colors, which made mixing and matching fabrics a lot of fun. I fell in love with the bright pink rose fabric, so chose some white floral, daffodil yellow, checkered pink and green floral to complement it. For the backing, I chose the sweetest soft white flannel with tiny baby pink roses, hoping that the quilt could have a "bright" side and a "calm" side. For this quilt, I decided to go with a simple square pattern of alternating fabrics and tie quilting. For basic quilting instructions, see my Summer Quilt post.

I decided to surprise Sarah for Christmas with Karlie's quilt, not realizing how much work I still had to finish. Next thing I knew, I was on my way to the Keys with an un-quilted quilt!





I packed my needle and quilting thread and cracked down on the several hour drive. Thank goodness for mini-scissors! :)










Around mile marker 40, the quilt was finally finished! Completed with Karlie's name hand-embroidered in bright pink, I hope Karlie gets lots of use from her pink quilt made with love from Aunt Jodi.