Friday, September 03, 2010

Elmo's Baby Quilt and Pillow

**dusts off cobwebs** Well, hello there! Long time no see. We certainly didn’t intend to take such a long blog break, but as usual life happened and we’ve been busy! After all, running after toddlers can really put a dent in your free time ;) But I am super excited about my latest quilting project and I couldn’t wait to share it with you!

As some of you long-time readers my recall, we are actually a threesome. But knitting had to take a sideline for Nasus while she went to law school, took the bar, and became a practicing attorney (Yay, Nasus!). However, we are happy to report that Nasus is expecting her first child, a little girl, this coming October…which of course meant a good excuse for a new quilt!

Stacked Quilt - top

Last year at the Long Beach Quilt Show, I put together some Japanese import fat quarters from a couple different booths. I fell in love with the cute and charming little prints and knew that I wanted to feature them in a quilt project. I found some nice coordinating red prints to go with the cream character prints. When I got home I put everything away and promptly forgot all about them.

Stacked Quilt - top close up

When we first found out that Nasus was pregnant, I immediately started scheming for an appropriate project. I had initially planned to use some of my Riley stash, since it is pretty girly, but when I went digging through everything, I came across the Japanese prints and instantly knew those were the prints for Nasus. I knew the red and cream with be a good fit for this project, since Nasus is a bit on the nontraditional side, like me, when it comes to pink=girl/ blue=boy scale of baby items. Plus, although in my heart I knew she was having a girl, Nasus hadn’t actually found out the gender of the baby when I started this project.

Stacked Quilt - binding close up

I played around with a stacked coin idea for this quilt, but when Oh, Fransson! re-released her Simple Modern Baby Quilts pattern, the stacked version was perfect for the fabrics I had.

Stacked Quilt - back

In addition to the Japanese fat quarters, I added the primarily blue print (also a Japanese import) and the red with blue checks print for the binding and some of the red ‘stacks’. The solid is a red Kona solid, I believe in tomato. These additions came from Levine’s during my first ever trip to the L.A. fabric district. (So much fun! I was like a kid in a candy store!)

Stacked Quilt - back close up

The piecing of this project was super easy, although I learned that I need to work on my ‘scant ¼ inch seams’. And with the extra bits leftover from the quick piecing method used to make the blocks for the quilt, I decided to make a coordinating pillow.

Stacked Quilt - top with pillow

Now, I know babies don’t use pillows and when I received a similarly sized pillow for my own baby shower, I couldn’t imagine what I would ever use it for…until Elliott got close to a year and loved playing with our pillows. Then it dawned on me that he was physically mature enough that a smooth pillow was no longer a serious suffocation hazard. I put his pillow in his crib and the rest is history! It is now one of this favorite things and he falls asleep every night on his pillow.

Stacked Quilt - top with pillow

I’ve never made a pillow before and thought it would be fun. I more or less winged the pattern, just playing around with my scraps. I also wanted to add a zipper so that the pillow could be washed when the pillow inevitable got blurped on or smeared with godknowswhat. I learned how to put in an invisible zipper and while it certainly isn’t perfect, it really makes it look more professional. B was very impressed ;)

Stacked Quilt - top with pillow

So there you have it…Elmo’s baby quilt and matching pillow. I can’t wait to meet Nasus’ little girl and I hope she enjoys her gifties!

The Girls and their Babies

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh it's so breathtakingly cute!! Perfect for Elmo! :)

ps: I just love how we will be doubled in size (ppl-wise) in a couple of months! :)

Mouse said...

Oh hooray.. congratulations Nasus! I'm glad to see you guys posting again.. its been too long!!!

Sway Knits said...

This is so pretty! I love the tomato red color.

Marisa said...

Super duper cute!! And you aced that invisible zipper :)

Ruinwen Dagorielle said...

What an adorable gift! I love the matching pillow; you did a fantastic job on those seams!

Melissa said...

Oh man, I know what you mean about free time!

Super cute quilt and pillow!

Anonymous said...

Big congrats to Nasus! Love the quilt, its so cute! The prints are adorable, and I love how the top looks woven. Such a great gift!
PS I hear ya, I have to badly update my blog too....

Nasus said...

Elmo LOVES the gift!!!