Thursday, June 20, 2013

Petals

In my last post, I mentioned a quilt I had started piecing and quilting by hand.  The construction of this quilt began at the beginning of December 2012 and finished towards the end of March 2013.  It was truly a labor of love, but I'm so proud of the results.

This quilt started with the knowledge that Zach and Alysa, the mom-to-be (again), was expecting their second child, a little girl, in May.  I wanted to make her a baby quilt, but any old baby quilt just wouldn't do.  Alysa has a great sense of style and decorating sense and is a master at DIY projects.  I wanted to create something that reflect who she is as well as something that would coordinate with her nursery.  Since I was doing this quilt completely by hand, I started this quilt shortly after she revealed the gender and took a few risks with the fabric selections since I didn't know exactly what she was going to do in her nursery yet.  Here's the fabric collection I picked.


Now, I had the fabric and I needed to figure out the design.  I found a print on Pinterest that has always caught my attention whenever I've seen it posted and the thought occurred to me that I could recreate it as a quilt.  It is a fun, modern design and would work well with the fabric selection.  Here's the print:


For the quilt, I created a template out of card stock and started cutting petals out of each fabric.  I basted the quilt by laying out the backing, batting and the background fabric for the front.  I placed the petals and pinned them to the layers of fabric.  Once everything was in place and the entire quilt was basted, I used a quilting hoop to start hand-appliqueing each petal down and then quilting the petal down to secure the layers of fabric together with a pale pink thread.  I continued this process until I had every petal secure.  Once that was done, I changed to a pale aqua thread to quilt between the petals into the negative space to finish out the quilting design.  I usually try and put the baby's initial on the quilt as just an added touch, but I wanted to try something different with this quilt.  Instead of hand-appliqueing the initial down using one of the fabrics in the quilt, I put the initial into the quilting of the quilt.  Here's the finished product.




 What's even better than taking photos of my quilts myself?   It's having a professional do it!  Cindy Isom, a very talented photographer in the Memphis area, took family and newborn pictures of Zach, Alysa and daughters.  They were very kind and included this quilt as a prop and the pictures are so wonderful.  Here's just a taste from the photo session.


14 comments:

  1. That is an amazing quilt! You thought it out precisely and it came out beautifully!

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  2. Sew sweet! Wow, you sure put a lot of thought and effort into this special quilt for a special baby!

    Lorna:)
    http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.com

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  3. i am having another baby just so you can make me one of those!!! it's gorgeous from the fabric selection to the amazing pattern you picked (good eye!), to the personalized quilting. i think i'll adopt your initial idea to add to my daughter's quilt i'm about to work on.
    fantastic!!!

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  4. I've seen the same image floating around on Pinterest as well and always thought it would make a nice quilt, and it does! This is just gorgeous, love the quilting! And wow, how cute is that little girl!

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  5. beautiful quilt, Janet. I love the sweet baby photos with it. Thanks for linking to Needle and Thread Thursday!

    :) Kelly @ My Quilt Infatuation

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  6. This is so very pretty! And the baby is ADORABLE!!

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  7. Your quilt is beautiful! I love the design!

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  8. This is just gorgeous. Love the fabric and love your design! And baby girl is to die for!! Just stunning, thank you for sharing.
    Keera

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  9. Best baby/quilt pictures ever!
    Esther
    esthersipatchandquilt at yahoo dot com
    ipatchandquilt dot wordpress dot com

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  10. A quilt to treasure forever. Fabulous work!

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  11. May I ask why you chose to do the applique work after basting instead of completing the top before basting and then hand quilting?

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  12. I love this quilt..So inspired. Feel like making one. Putting it on my list to do!

    Thanks for sharing,

    Amira @ http://littlemushroomcap.blosgpot.com

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