From planning to final product

Another baby, another quilt.  

In March, my good friends from high school, Ray and Yael, had a baby--Auden.  I started planning out Auden's quilt months ago--getting feedback from Ray and Yael on their preferences*, creating a mock-up on the computer, pulling out the crayons, letting it sit while I considered the design (and made sure I still liked the idea after a week), and making calculations on fabric requirements.  

And finally, I went shopping--deciding on 3 green fabrics and 13 blues.  I kind of felt like a maniac as I pulled out bolt after bolt in the fabric store.

It seemed like a bad idea to have the backing be completely white, but I wanted to carry over some of the white from the front onto the back.  I did this by repeating the thick white border from the front.  I also used a fabric with a larger scale pattern on the back.

In thinking about how to do the actual quilting, I considered several options--tie it with yarn, hire a long arm quilter, or machine quilt it myself.  Ultimately it was my friend Julie who convinced me to "stitch in the ditch" machine quilt it, which I think was a brilliant suggestion.

I love this quilt.  It's one of my very favorites to have made--partly because it's beautiful and partly because I made it for dear friends.

*I liked Ray and Yael's input because it gave me the perfect opportunity to try a couple of things I've been thinking about in quilting but never done before, like the white background, incorporating cornerstones (the smaller green squares) instead of continuous sashing, and using a simple color pallet but many different fabric patterns that fit the pallet.  (Plus, sorry all the pictures have a green haze in the middle--looks like I need to wipe something off my phone).