Baby Quilts
“Surprise!”
May 2008
This is the first baby quilt I’ve made outside our church’s ministry. Heidi was a bit of a surprise baby, hence the title. Yellows, purples, and a non-frou-frou girly theme. The quilt was originally a much different design, but halfway through I discovered I’d cut all my HST squares too small. I ended up designing the quilt around the pieces I already had sewn, which rather limited the blocks I could make. The butterfly was adapted from a quilt design I named “Butterfly Effect. ”
“Welcome to Rocking T Ranch”
April 2008
If you can’t tell, little Tyler had a cowboy theme going. His mom had already made some bedroom accessories from the green, red, and cowboy print fabrics, and gave me the extras so the quilt would fit in even better. The horse is my favorite part, especially the fringed mane and tail–they’re so much fun to play with 
“A New Hope”
April 2008
This quilt is very special to me, and I am so pleased at how well it turned out. One of my dearest friends adopted Hope from China. Since the adoption process takes a while, I had plenty of time to chew over the design of the quilt. Her theme was butterflies, in pink, purple, and pale green. The girl is my own design, the blocks a simple four-patch.
“Jason’s Flight”
April 2008
I designed this baby quilt, but didn’t piece or quilt it. The information given to me was “blue and green.” That’s it, so I had to use my own judgment. The feeling I was going for was old flannel shirts, that manly, home-spun look. The block used was “Bird in Air.” It is also entirely done by hand.
“Cherry Blossom Surprise”
July 2007
Olivia was recently adopted from China, and the theme her new mom picked was “Cherry Blossoms.” Sounds great, until I discovered I couldn’t find a single 5-petaled, pieced flower block. I searched all over and just came up blank. Applique, yes. Foundation pieced, yes. But I don’t do either of those. Not yet anyhow. So I designed my own. It’s a easy block to piece, and very versatile–I’ve already adapted it for a pansy quilt I’m making. The name comes from a fiddle piece called “Orange Blossom Special.” It’s played by Leahy, one of our all-time favorite groups.
“Everybody’s Favorite Eliana”
May 2007
I wanted Eliana’s quilt to look like wreaths of flowers floating in the greenery. The quilt block I used was called “Everybody’s Favorite,” hence the name of the quilt. This was also my first foray into machine quilting since Lilia’s bell (usually I take the easy way and just hand-tie). I think I still need lots of practice on that skill, but I’m pleased with how the quilt as a whole turned out.
“Keegan’s All-Stars”
March 2007
This quilt meant a great deal to me, as Keegan’s mama is the best unofficial sister I have. Last time she had a baby, I couldn’t do her quilt, mainly because my daughter was born 9 days later. His theme involved lots of blues and silvers and stars, stars, stars. I had the roughest time with all those triangles–only afterwards did I discover some of the secrets to properly cutting and piecing those wretched things. I was rather proud of the little blue star buttons decorating the block corners. Two blue plastic 1″ buttons cost a whopping $2.50. I said ‘I don’t think so!’ and bought a pack of 12 unfinished wooden buttons for 99 cents, painted them myself, and thus saving enough to buy more fabric 
“Sweet Caroline”
March 2007
Caroline was actually born in the summer of 2006, but between hectic schedules and people not returning their blocks in time, she didn’t get her quilt until this past spring. All the information given to me for this quilt was “Girlie colors.” I had the multi-flowered blocks already in my stash, so I built the quilt around those.
“Aidan’s Safari”
December 2005
This was the second baby quilt I did. Aidan’s parents specifically told me to make the quilt small. This is only 2.5′ by 3.5ish. Aidan had a jungle theme for his nursery, and the white blocks are supposed to form a W, for his last name.
“Lilia Rings a Bell”
Summer 2005
The baby quilt that got me back into quilting. Lilia’s mother leads our bell choir at church, so I decided to make her quilt in the shape of a giant bell. Giant being the operative word. The bell turned out to be about 6′ by 7′. By comparison, most baby quilts are 3′ by 4′. 
I eventually had to remake this quilt into a set of curtains because they didn’t have the wall space to hang it. Which was a pain, but worth the extra effort–the curtains fit her nursery perfectly.
