July - Oh Baby Island Batik Challenge

The July challenge for the Island Batik Ambassadors was to make some kind of a baby quilt.  What a great challenge!  Who doesn't like to make baby quilts!

Once again, my mind was spinning with what to make with the fabrics I'd been given.  I wanted to do something with a lot of color, so I went to some of the small strip pieces we'd been given.  They were about 3" x 10".   That gave me some nice color.  I should have taken a photo of the colorful strips- but I jumped into cutting before I thought about it.  I cut the blocks 3" x 3".

What pattern to use?  I usually make baby quilts that look very cute and baby-ish.  This time I was still thinking about the modern challenge we had a couple months ago, and thought maybe I'd do something with squares and with more of a modern look.

Have you ever gotten ideas in your head that don't go away?  When we had the modern challenge, there were all sorts of patterns I thought about using.  Then we had the curves challenge and all I could think about were curves - ha!  This baby quilt let me use one of the modern patterns that I liked.

Here is a photo of the finished quilt - with a little friend.

The quilt measures 37" x 37".  This quilt was different for me as I didn't start with a pattern.  I started with the colored block size and went from there.  I used a yellow  batik called Swirl Leaf - Blond Ale  from the Twilight Blush collection for the sashings, center squares, backing and binding.

It usually takes me awhile to decide how to quilt, but this time I knew from the start that I wanted to use straight cross hatching.  I used a nice Blendable thread from Sulky. - 4126 for the quilting.  You can't really see it from the photo, but it picked up the colors in the blocks, and looked nice on the back too.

This is a great quilt for using scrap blocks.  It goes together easily.  

Do you need a quick baby quilt?  Give it a try!