The fun just never stops!

Yup! I started another quilt the other night. Another girl quilt, but with a more traditional color scheme this time (blush pink and grey) for my first baby niece.

I absolutely love how the blue and green gradient quilt turned out for little Liam, so I thought I'd try my hand at mixing some prints again. I spent about an hour at JoAnn Fabrics matching shades of pink and grey, and came home with a quarter yard of 14 different fabrics, plus a larger piece of a pretty dusty pink print for the backing. As always, I eliminated one solid pink fabric because it ended up clashing when I got home... I think they must have special lights in the store that make everything look good together.


I didn't really have a plan going into this quilt, but I knew I wanted to go simple with it. "Baby Butt" (as her big brother calls her) is due in October instead of December like I had originally thought, so I wanted to be sure I'd be able to get it done quickly. So far, that doesn't seem like it will be a problem... it will most likely be done by the end of August at this rate!

Pinterest is always a good starting point for inspiration. I found a couple gradient quilts in pink that I thought were nice... but since I only had a quarter yard of each fabric I simplified even more.



This is where my friend Adobe Illustrator is really helpful. I love that I can lay out an artboard to the exact size I want my project to be, plop a bunch of colored rectangles on it, and move and resize them until they fit just right. Then, I can get exact dimensions just by clicking on each piece (remember to add seam allowance!). I also labeled each strip with a name so I could keep all the fabrics straight.


The baby's room is going to be blush pink and grey, so I really wanted to add a pop of bright color in with this quilt. The center piece is the widest and brightest fabric; a hot pinkish batik. The strips then get narrower and lighter in color as they radiate away from the hot pink center. 

Cut, cut, cut! It almost feels like jelly roll strips or something...



Jelly roll, anyone?

I then sewed all the strips together in order. This literally took an hour last night... poof! Quilt top! I just kind of wish I had switched the swirly batik with the dotted one... 


Tonight I plan to press the seams, sandwich the quilt, and get started on the top stitching.

Of course, I will also make the usual matching bag, but since the quilt top is pieced out of the entire width of the fabrics, there are no pieced parts left over to use. Fortunately there is plenty of extra fabric to replicate the pattern with.

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