cloudy skies | a quilt for Luke

One of my friends from high school recently gave birth to her second baby and my friend Ari and I made a quilt for him. We knew his nursery was gray, white, and yellow and there was a vague cloud theme going on, and we knew we wanted to keep it classic and simple. Ari had the idea to make a herringbone quilt so we got to work making half square triangles, and I found the perfect teal cloud fabric for the back. I quilted it with simple straight lines and bound it in a mustardy yellow. I was about to say simple quilts are always the best, but then I realized crazy quilts are sometimes the best. Either way, I love the simplicity of this one and most of all I loved working on it with Ari. We hope Luke loves it too!

neutral patchwork | a quilt for Noah

The colors in these photos aren't true to life at all, but they'll have to do because I don't feel like editing them, nor do I have the time. This is a super simple quilt that I made for the baby boy of a friend. We're not close friends, and I usually only make quilts for people I'm close to, but sometimes I feel like making a quilt anyway. Do you ever feel like that? I thought they would appreciate the gesture, and of course quilts are useful so hopefully it will be well received! I used part of a charm pack and some fat quarters and half yards that I don't love. I'm happy with how it turned out, simple as it is.

plaid at sea | a quilt for Harry

 One of my good friends is having her third baby soon, a boy after two girls (see their quilts here and here). I asked her if she had any ideas for his nursery yet and she sent me a few images of very classic, preppy, New England type rooms - blues and greens, plaid, and stripes. I love the simplicity of the flannel whole cloth quilt I made for Rory so I decided to make her baby boy a wholecloth quilt too. I chose a plaid by Robert Kaufman and then gave her a bunch of coordinating options to choose from for the other side. I quilted it in a grid, echoing the plaid, and bound it in a chambray polka dot that I love and will definitely be using for binding again. My boy Finn was happy to help as my quilt holder! He grew rather attached to the little dragon though, and begged to keep it - haha... luckily for him his Gram found out and got him his own ;)

simple strips | a quilt for Benjamin

Friends recently welcomed their first baby and of course he needed a quilt. I've realized that I don't have a lot of greens or blues in my stash so I bought a scrap bundle to fill in the gaps. These simple strips came together quickly - I actually cut and laid them out when we had friends over for waffles one night! The back is made of scraps left from the front along with one big piece of cotton + steel clouds. In the photos it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb but I promise it coordinates quite nicely in real life. I can't remember how I quilted it except that I wrote his name, Benjamin, somewhere in the middle. He's already almost a month old and cute as can be - he has red hair like his mom and dad!

I love the polka dot binding, but I'm a little bummed that I didn't put a label on it. I kept forgetting to order more and I ran out and didn't receive my new ones until well after I gave this one to the baby's mom. At least his name is on it! Ezra and Finn were very helpful when I asked them to hold the quilt so I could take a couple photos before wrapping it up. I love these little guys so much!

postage stamps in spring | a quilt for Appleby

Last year I made my second biggest quilt ever, a generous full size that's now on the bed of one of my best friend's daughters. Ari, my friend, had ambitions of making her daughter a quilt. She bought and cut a bunch of fabric (some of my favorites, like Bonnie Christine's Winged fabric, Tasha Noel's ducks, Heather Ross's strawberries and ballerinas, and Leah Duncan's Meadow prints) and even sewed a few strips together, but she ended up feeling overwhelmed and I asked if I could finish it up. I was so happy when she agreed to let me because it was such a nice quilt to work on. If I didn't love her and her daughter so much I'm not sure I would have been able to part with it!

I always intend to keep track of my progress better and I actually succeeded this time! Since Ari wanted a postage stamp quilt and had already cut a lot of squares I decided to make blocks that were 7x8 squares to make the project a little more manageable. I thought it would be more doable that way instead of piecing insanely long strips together at the end. If she had just given me yardage I probably would have used this tutorial because I think it would be faster and the prints would be randomized automatically. Anyway, I made sixteen of my 7x8 square blocks for a total of 896 squares! The back is from a sheet set that I saw at Target and suggested to Ari, small black plus signs on a white background. My mom offered to baste it for me (she knows that's my least favorite part of the process) but I ended up doing it over because of a problem area that I knew would be an issue when I was quilting. I did it early one morning before the boys were awake because whenever I baste a quilt they can't resist walking all over it which makes the task difficult, and that's putting it nicely. Ari and I decided on simple straight line quilting 1/4" on either side of all the seams, which is a lot of straight lines! It took me almost ten bobbins and between 10-12 hours, I lost track along the way. We picked Cotton + Steel Sprinkles fabric in black for the binding which gives the quilt a nice sharp finish, I think. Once it was done it measured 92.5"x89.5", and after washing it measured 82"x72", shrinking more than ten inches. I remember being really surprised at how much it shrunk, but I'm wondering if I measured that last dimension wrong now because that's a real lot. Hmm...

The pictures don't do it justice, but as usual I had Matt hold the quilt while the kids ran amok so we didn't have much time. We were at Meshanticut Lake, a little hidden gem in Cranston (okay, it's kind of gross because of all the goose poop sometimes and the swans are scary, but it's pretty if you can ignore those things, and I like to bring the boys there so we can illegally feed the ducks), and I love that I caught one of the swans in the first photo. Check him out up there! I love this quilt and am so glad I can visit it at Ari's house whenever I want :)