Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Evolution of a baby quilt

Hallie quilt idea 1
As I posted last week, there was quite a lot that happened before I ended up with this final project. Above is my original design, which was based on this fantastic quilt from Quilts, Baby!

Hallie quilt inspiration 1
The problem? I think my blocks were too square, too same-y. Once I decided that I didn't like the way the quilt was turning out, I had a minor quilting meltdown. I didn't want to scrap the blocks I had spent so long making, but I definitely needed an adjustment. I pulled all of my quilting books of the shelf and turned them, looking for inspiration. In Material Obsession, I found this:

Hallie quilt inspiration 2
I decided to use my existing bird blocks in place of the large prints in that quilt and then make a number of courthouse step blocks to fill in the gaps. The next problem: what fabrics to use to make the patchwork blocks? I pulled fabrics from my stash and spread them all out on the floor, eventually deciding on a pile that I thought worked.

auditioning borders
Once I had those blocks made, I auditioned borders (see above) and ended up using the thin teal one on all four sides and the thicker green one just on the long sides, so help make the quilt more squared. In the end, I'm happy I took the extra time on this one because I think I ended up with a better finished quilt.

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