Quilts for Bambina

I love making baby quilts. Their is such excitement and anticipation for the birth a child. Just think of the  joy that little person will bring to the family. Now I am turning 65 in December, so I am not making any babies (shudder). But I get excited whenever a neighbor or co-worker is expecting. I am in my glory picking that perfect fabric. I sometime make myself a little nuts trying to find just the right fabric, something that represents the parents in some way.

A few months ago I made a quilt for a co-workers daughter. She gave birth to a lovely little girl they named Luna.  All I needed was her favorite colors and the name of her child and I was off to the races picking fabrics illustrating the story Good Night Moon and all kids of fun things that mom liked. I was super excited when I found fabric for the back that had bunnies and bears swing on moons. Too cute!.

Luna's quilt

backing for Luna's quilt

This quilt was fun to design and make. I even quilted it. I think it took me longer to quilt it than it did to piece it. I am beginning to think quilting on a home machine is sort of like exercise. Sometimes you have to do it, but it does not mean it's fun. The piecing... yeah! That is fun.


Having had so much fun with Luna's quilt I was ecstatic when a psychologist at work announced she was expecting a baby girl in February. I found a pattern in Fat Quarterly book called Shape Workshop for Quilters. The pattern name is "Cub Crawl Baby Quilt". This is a square-in-square block with long rectangles. The design is perfect for fancy cutting fabric for the squares, and lots of  room for creativity in the fabric selection. The quilt is 48" by 56". This seems a little big for a baby crib quilt, but perfect for throwing on the floor for baby.

Mom has painted a mural with trees on a wall in the baby room. There will be birds on the branches. When I saw the tree fabrics and the birds that set the tone for the quilt. I then found a companion fabric for the pink forest that had princesses. Just the right touch of pink for the little girl. The last fabric I fell in love with had pink and orange scooters and bugs. So this is no traditional baby quilt, which should be perfect for this thoroughly modern mom to be.

This is the layout of the quilt. At this point it needed to be assembled, which I have done, but have yet to take a picture of it together. You can get the general idea. But I admit it looks even better sewn together. It also looks much nicer when it's not against my basement floor, but that is my "design wall" for now.

Ready to be assembled.

 Oh, and for extra fun I found a wonderful funky fabric for the back. Did I mention there is a lot of Italian heritage on both sides of this baby's family. I was powerless  when I saw this Italian alphabet fabric. I had to purchase it.

The alphabet in Italian.

This will be the backing and I think I'll bind the quilt with a green fabric.. I'm not quilting this one. At least I hope not. I just sent a email to my longer arm quilter. I hope she says send it up. I have some time before the baby shower, but I am excited to see this one quilted. Sandy always does a great job and I am excited to see what she comes up with when she quilts this.

So time to wait, no, time to cut out the fabric for that Christmas lap quilt. I love Christmas quilts too.
And my granddaughters aunt is expecting.....sounds like time to shop the stash. Maybe another baby quilt is on the horizon.
Have a good week.