Let the baby quilt begin

I have five weeks.  I must love a challenge.  In that five weeks, I need a baby quilt, a wedding quilt and 44 small lemoyne stars. 

Goodness Gracious!

I might take advantage of a rule that I’m not sure is officially etiquette; it’s okay to give a wedding gift before the first anniversary.

So, that just leaves the baby quilt and the stars. 

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

So, this morning, I got started.  I drafted the pattern on paper with my trusty grade school girl’s pink and green compass.  Crude, but effective.  I used the skills that I learned in class on Friday.  I even smoothed out the curves so they’d be easier to sew, and while the steps for that are very logical, they aren’t something I would have come up with on my own.  Thanks, Martha!

And, I cut my template out of plastic.

I decided not to rotary cut around the template, but instead stacked four layers of fabric, traced the template on the top layer, pinned the layers together at the corners, and cut four apple core blocks with scissors in one go.  I felt like I needed four to make sure my blocks were going to come together the way I wanted them to. 

 

I picked the polka dots because I’ve had them for 10 years; they were a gift from my mentor.  And, who knows how long she’d had them.  I think they’d make a cute baby quilt, but they’re so thin, so I’m going to choose different fabrics from stash for this baby quilt in greens and yellows.  Then, I’ll use this polka dot fabric for Linus quilts.

Yes, I know how that sounds.  I can hear it as I type it.  But, with a Linus quilt, you don’t know if that’s going to be a dog blanket in a week, so I don’t mind if I don’t always use my best quilt shop quality fabric for them.  I don’t exclude my expensive fabrics, but I’m more likely to use less expensive fabric for my donation quilts to small children who are likely to outgrow the quilt relatively quickly.

It makes sense to me.

I can hardly wait for Martha’s book to come out so I can share her techniques with you all.  For now, let’s just say that the only place I pinned the four patches above was at the intersection, just to make sure it would match up when it was sewn.  I joined 2 two-patches, then joined those into 1 four patch, sewing two seams from the center out, which is easier than trying to sew it in one continuous seam that moves from convex curve to concave curve. 

Last night was a big Lane night.  I had my two show and tell, the apple core 30’s repro quilt top and my Civil War Stars.  When I stood up to introduce them, I got tongue twisted.  I wanted to tell the teacher’s name, and even though I said Martha, I got Marsha stuck in my head, and fumbled around like the uncoordinated kid trying to catch the football.  All I could think after that was Jan Brady saying “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!”  I was so tongue tied that when it was time to talk about the stars quilt, I could hardly get anything out.  And, it didn’t help that the person ahead of me in the show and tell line was also a guy, who also had a star quilt.  It was very pretty, and I joked that maybe I should have kept my star quilt off stage for another month.

Then, my class went up with their blocks.  And, I introduced them and talked about how much fun we had in class.  There were quite a few finished blocks up there.  It was very nice. 

There was applause.

And, then, unknown to me, the quilt show raffle quilt co-chair stood up and showed off my triple feathered star and had me stand up.  More applause.  It was to incent guild members to take blocks to piece and bring back.  I think we handed out almost all of the feathered star blocks for the raffle quilt to members to take home and piece and bring back next month.  I saw some finished border blocks last night.  It’s going to be a wonderful quilt. 

Everybody have a great Tuesday.  I’m looking forward to cutting out blocks over the next couple of days, and turning them into a very cute baby quilt for a neighbor we don’t really know that well.  But, we’d like to.  And, what better way than with a quilt.

See ya’! 

Lane