Hexagon quilt #2

Hexagon Baby Quilt #2

Ugh!! Just a side note- I'm so sick of blurry quilt photos! They make me sad. So, my apologies. Have a few older projects to post and from now on my photos should be better as I have finally purchased a nice camera... now I jut have to learn how to use it and I'll be on my way... to stardom! JK.

Close up on cute baby elephants

I was so happy when my old roommate from 2004-2006 emailed me requesting a baby quilt! I had made one for her baby last year, but it was a gift from me and another friend, so I never got to talk to her directly. It was so fun to catch up, and also make something for her brother who is expecting a baby with his wife. Fun fact, they met at Loyola and used to come to parties at our apartment when they were freshman and we were juniors! Good times. I really love making quilts for people that I know, I tend to think a lot about the recipient as I sew, so it was nice to remember people from my past this way.

Baby's name

We went with a girly yet slightly whimsical feel and it was fun to pick out fabrics! I like all the little objects hiding in the quilt, from elephants, to balloons, to bees, and flowers, and feathers. I hope babies like looking at those things as they grow. 

Headed to Kansas City!

I used a Cloud 9 voile for the binding, which is so soft and nice. I also did straight-line quilting to echo the lines of the hexagons, and used my little knee bar on my sewing machine for all the pivot points which made it a thousand times better than having to manually lift the foot on every corner!!

Close up on the back

I really love the back too, I think all the fabrics are so sweet! As you know I adore this elephant balloon print, the bows are great, and I love that top fabric with the kids and the animals, and I think they work really nicely together, and the pink quilting thread shows up well but isnt too bright.

All done!

Another fun baby quilt in the books for 2015! Thanks, Lauren, for the order :)

Hexagon Baby Quilt

Hexigon Baby quilt!

I recently got an order for a baby quilt from my friend's aunt- she has a new granddaughter and saw this quilt that I made for Angie and wanted to order one to match her granddaughter's nursery. The only pic I saw showed lilac walls and some embroidery hoops on the walls with blues, greens, whites, and browns. It was cute, and not a palate I normally work with, so it was fun to branch out.  

Half- hexis.... cheating?

I've also been wanting to make something with hexagons for ages, except they are usually hand pieced because of all the weird angles. I did briefly try hand piecing when I first moved to Nashville and was in my apartment for a week without any of my stuff. But... it did not go well. Then I remembered I'd seen them made by making rows, and each row is made up of a half hexagon. Then, when you sew them together they make the full shape. 

Close up

So I made a template that was 3" tall, which makes the finished hexagon 5" tall. It did take a while to make, but it was fun trying a new shape. I also experimented with using other fabrics besides just quilting cotton. I used that plus cotton lawn, voile, and double gauze. I must say these were not super easy to work with, especially the stretchy, shifty double gauze, but I like the look in the end!

CIrcle Quilting

I also had a lot of fun quilting this! I used my walking foot but did concentric circles instead of my usual stand-by of straight lines. I traced 3 circles in 3 places on the quilt, that did a circle 1.5" out from all of those, then just kept moving outwards until I liked how it looked. The 3-4 inner circles were kind of a pain to do, but after that it went pretty fast. 

Embroidered name and birth date

I also hand-embroidered the baby's name and birthday, which I think is really cute. I like that its inside a circle too :)

The back!

For the back I used one of the cotton voiles by Art Gallery and they are so luxuriously soft, so this will be a great quilt for a little baby to crawl around on! I also like how the circle quilting looks on the back, although my pics arent the greatest. Time to invest in a camera??

I bound it in Hoppy Dots by Tula Pink, which is kind of a grey-ish lilac polka dot fabric with little bunnies scattered about too. Can't wait to send this one off to its new home! Thanks for reading!