Slowly but surely, my granny squares quilt top is coming together. I still have no idea about backing, binding or quilting method, so I’m not exactly rushing to get through it. (I love all the fabrics so much I’m tempted to just throw some fat quarters together for the backing.)
Hope you’re having a great Valentine’s day!
The moment I saw this little quilt by Erica of Craftyblossom, I knew I would be making my own version of it. It was just perfect — crisp and clean, eye catching yet simple. And it didn’t take long until I knew who the recipient would be, as my friend Sarah is having a daughter she currently calls Juju.
There’s a lot to like about Sarah, but it can be helpful to focus on one aspect of a person if you want to make her a quilt. Sarah’s seamlessly blended her very techie family life into their historic Virginia home. She loves sharing the stories of her community’s past and can give you the best guided tour you’ve ever had. Taken down to the basics, she just has a passion for keeping the past alive and here with us in the present.
When she and her husband got married, Sarah wore a beautiful white dress. Around her waist was a bright red ribbon in memory of her Dad. It was a simple but powerful thing. With a red ribbon, she tied her past, present and future together on one of her family’s most special of days. This little quilt is an attempt to help Sarah wrap her daughter up in those amazing memories.
And so we have Juju’s baby quilt. Here it is pieced, but not yet quilted or bound.
The ingredients, if you’re curious: A charm pack of white squares, two charm packs of Silent Film and Kona solid in Red. I removed the black from the Silent Film packs. The darkest gray in the packs, Pepper, seemed dark enough without being harsh. (It looks black in these photos, and it almost is.) The backing is Kona in Coal, the darker medium gray from the front. The half square triangles were made as in this tutorial.
The binding is more of the Kona Red, a ribbon of red like Sarah’s wedding dress.
And here’s the finished quilt:
I hope that Sarah will have many new memories of Juju and her quilt!
I need 20 squares to begin piecing together the quilt, and I get can one or sometimes two made before work each day. Slow and steady wins the race!
The fabrics are from Malka Dubrawsky’s line A Stitch in Color. Aren’t they wonderful? I’ll give full details in a future post.
I love cut chenille baby blankets! Layers of flannel are sewn into lines across a pretty cotton fabric. Cut, bound and ready to wash …
it frays up so nicely into a thick froth of chenille.
This style is so easy that it would make a great first quilt for a new quilter, yet it makes a plush, incredibly soft blanket.
This type of blanket is perfect for those fabrics you like so much, you don’t want to cut them up. Show them off!
You can see more about cut chenille blankets here. In the near future, I hope to make another one of these for a little sports-fan-to-be!
I’ve spent the day working on a half square triangle quilt. Isn’t it beautiful when held up in front of a window? It’s a shame I can’t stitch the sunshine right in.
