Bloggers Quilt Festival :: Willow Baby Quilt :: { Finished! }

It's finally done! Well, technically it was done almost 2 months ago, but let's not get bogged down with semantics.

I made this quilt for my sister-in-law, Katie, who was having her first baby, a boy...now named Simon. I sent her over to Hawthorne Threads and she made me a long list of her favorite fabrics. Willow by Alexander Henry was on there, so I ordered a fat quarter bundle to simplify things. Then I popped over to All People Quilt and looked up some patterns. I ended up settling on the Fresh 4 Patch Table Topper. The quilt ends up at about 50" square, which is a great size for his crib or just hanging around the house. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and so was mom.

Here it is! A big thanks to my mom and her weary arms for holding this up while I played photographer.

Close up! That upper left square is just my favorite in the entire thing! It's like a little path leading into the quilt, inviting you into a cute little cottage.

My first pieced backing! I've made a couple of smaller baby quilts before, so this was my first time having to create a larger backing. I thought it would be fun to include a sampling of prints from the front.
You can also see all the straight-line quilting really well here. I outlined each square and border with 1/4" seams on either side. It's the most detailed quilting I've done and took a few hours, but it was worth it.

I love how this strip turned out!

I got one of those fancy dancy fabric pens and made this my signature block. I've been very bad about not doing those, so this was a nice and easy way to do it. Now that we're sure about his name, I have to go back and fill it in.

Here's mom at the shower! She was so pleased and surprised by the fabric I chose and what I did with it. She said it will make the perfect crib blanket for him because she didn't like any other bedding she has seen. I won't lie, I always enjoy the whole "wait, no way, you made that?!" chatter that ensues after someone opens my handmade gifts. I'm surrounded by creatives, but absolutely none of them sew. The additional praise suits me just fine :)