Baby Quilt

My latest completed quilt project- a crib quilt for a first time mama we all know.....

This was made entirely from my fabric scrap bag in the favorite colors of the little mama. There are historic fabrics in this quilt, including scraps from the kitchen curtains I made in my first house as a young bride forty years ago.

I was about four inches short in the length for the backing fabric so I fudged in some extra fabric.

This baby quilt is also another practice opportunity for my machine quilting technique.

Now I am waiting for the baby girl to arrive and then I will send this off in the mail.

Flying to Georgia to greet my new grandson I couldn't resist photographing the beautiful fluffy cotton clouds above Texas. Artists see art in all of God's creation. It is marvelous to ponder how especially blessed we are as humans in history to see beautiful clouds from above!

It is well into the spring season here in the south where February brings citrus fruits on the trees!

This is a calamondin- a Philippine lemon. I squeezed the juice into my water today and it was delicious!

Everyone has palm trees in their landscape here. It has been a rainy winter so though now the rains have stopped, the ground is like a wet, soggy sponge. This is a marshy region.

The pink blossoming trees seen everywhere are witchhazel. The azaleas will be next.

I brought with me the next quilt project to get started on. These are the batik fabrics. (The colors do not show accurately in this photo. The dark fabric is cobalt blue with black design.)

This is the pattern I will be using. I utilized the pattern maker's website software to arrange my fabrics and decide their exact placements. Again, the colors are not true. The deep blue is that dark fabric for the border and center star. The software at least helped me to place the fabrics in a pleasing arrangment of light and dark and medium values.

 

The piecing for this pattern is very complicated and precise. The technique is paper piecing and results in fine points and accurate seams.

This is a look at the paper piecing technique that uses a template with sewing and cutting lines. The pieces of fabric are sewn on one by one in a special order. This ensures accuracy and sharp points and perfect curves. It is complicated but once the technique is mastered the assembly line process is very fast.

I have the first set of components complete. These will be the center star.