Amelia's 1st birthday Quilt with Minkee Backing and Binding.

I wanted to give sweet baby Amelia a "Katie Quilt" for her birthday.  I used everything from my stash.  I started with this large piece of minkee fleece that I had leftover from another project.  It's super soft and BIG so I didnt' have to piece fabric together for the backing.   I have used Minkee for  backing before, but I always used batting ALSO, but this time I left out the batting.  For a large, bed-size quilt I think batting is fine, but I wanted something that she could lug around herself, so it needed to be LIGHT too.   

Double Sided Minkee is thick enough that it doesn't require batting.  Also, it gives a very nice effect when free-motion quilted.  However there is a slight downside when you omit the batting.  When there is no batting, there is nothing for the fleece to stick to.  The batting acts as a stabilizer so that your fleece doesn't shift around.  To remedy that problem I just used lots of safety pins in the basting process.  

For the quilt TOP I pieced together feminine prints of pink and grey.  Honestly, I'm not real sure what I was going for here - just scrappy I guess!!  Who knows, it was late when I came up with this design ;c)  I think a quilt looks best when you incorporate elements from the back on the front, and vice versa.  So for the front, I appliqued circles of minkee and also used the minkee as the binding.

** I have a tutorial on how to do self-binding with fleece HERE**

 And for the backing I took one of the pink floral prints and used it to applique her name.

In this last picture you can get a good look at the quilting design I used.   I always want to try these fun large-scale quilting motifs, but am always too scared.   I love the look of all-over free-hand feathers, but every time I attempt them I regret it.   I think maybe it's because I think every tiny bit of space needs to be quilted - and everything needs to be touching.   

So for my last couple projects I have been trying to use more negative space.   I think just as rainbow colors only look good with a good amount of WHITE.   . . . "fancy" quilting only look good when there is some negative space?  Maybe?   I'm working on it anyway! 

Lavender, Pale Yellow, and Grey

My friend Trenta, a lady and fellow mom who graduated with my sister, requested this quilt for a baby shower gift.  The baby's name - Emma.  

The piecing for this quilt is rather simple, but we most certainly "fancied" it up!  She had very specific colors in mind for this quilt.  And these colors must be very popular, because there were so many combinations of these colors together at the fabric shop, it was not difficult at all for me to blend them.  They even had a chevron with all the colors in it!  

Lavender, Pale yellow, Grey, and White for the pieced background.  For the appliqued name and binding, we used a teal.  I secured the "Emma" with a straight stitch using raw-edge fusible applique.  Then for the background I wanted a very feminine, flow-y motif.  I really love this floral paisley design and it worked well for this quilt I believe.  I did a few small pebbles around the applique which made it stand out a bit more.  

The icing on the cake is the backing, which is that chevron with the perfect blend of all the colors!

I've never had so many random people stop me at the fabric store to "ooh" and "ahh" over my pile of fabrics ;c)

A WHALE of a baby quilt!

See what I did there?  
Tee Hee.
My moms friend and co-worker Shelly is having a baby boy!  She decided a week before her baby shower that she liked the theme of green and navy . . and whales.  I love it too, and [by the way] ever since I completed this quilt, I now see whales on baby clothes everywhere I go!  ;c)
Shelly still has not decided on a name, but that's okay we will add that to the quilt later, no problem.  But thankfully, I was able to at least make a quilt within her range of colors just in time for her baby shower.

I made this quilt similar to the applique baby quilts I have made previously.  I made a Monkey, an Owl, 2 Owls, and one with a puppy.  It's easy because you can take several colors or prints from the nursery, and use those throughout the quilt.  

I drew the image on fusible stabilizer, and then once the appliques were fused to the background, I used a raw-edge machine buttonhole stitch to secure.  

 I did a version of McTing for the large open background area and feathers in the two pieces areas.

 I used rick rack in two different shades of blue to give more of a "water" effect.   Also I hand sewed buttons for the whales eyes, and I used small glass beads for the birds eyes.  (I told her that she could easily remove them with a seam ripper if she feels they are too much of a hazard.)