If you start with Beautiful Scraps You will end up with a Stunning Baby Quilt

I wanted to share an adorable little quilt that I finished just in time for the birth of a new little friend. I can’t wait to meet the new little person and to show her how welcome she is. I had her in mind when I started to put some Moda Little Ruby by Bonnie & Camille scraps together. The quilt is scrappy, so it includes more than just the Little Ruby Line. I added some grays and excluded the aqua prints.

I love the peekaboo photo in the shady grass. It’s so restful for a tiny baby. Would you like to get a little closer? Here is another view.

You can get a glimpse of the making of the baby quilt in a previous blog post . I made the Moda Love quilt and trimmed away half square triangles. I sewed up the triangles then trimmed them to a consistent size and organized the blocks. Below is the first setting. I moved things around a few times before I decided on the layout.

The above photo shows the body of the quilt complete. I needed to add a cute border to tie in all the colors and add the spark that this little beauty needed. Do I choose quiet restful fabric or bold and playful? I auditioned a lot of fabric and went with bold bright red and white.

With the border in place it’s time to get a measurement on the quilt and load it into my longarm quilt frame. I chose the perfect garden inspired digital pattern. It looks like ivy! How did I come up with that idea? Well…I do a lot of gardening around here and it seemed a natural fit.

The ivy design looks so sweet. I’m happy with my design choices all around. If you look closely you can see the binding has been stitched on and it’s made from the same red and white border fabric. The binding is made from a directional print so you need to keep that in mind when laying out the borders and the binding. I wanted all of the half circles to march in the same direction around the perimeter of the quilt. I attached the binding by machine and turned it to the back side of the quilt and hand stitched it in place.

I went to my favorite chair for some mindless movie viewing and hand stitching. I always enjoy binding. I try to finish early enough with a quilt project, so that I can slow down and hand stitch at a relaxing pace. I want to enjoy the process. I stitched for a few days to finish in time for gifting the quilt. My reality was that I didn’t quite have the binding complete before the baby shower. I gifted the quilt twice. Once at the shower, with incomplete binding, and a second time when the binding was complete and the quilt was washed and ready to be put in the nursery.

Quilts hold so many memories for the maker. I started the project during a cold dreary winter. I needed the pick-me-up of cheerful color to work with. I happen to love making baby quilts because new life is a celebration. It is a miracle of the highest level. In contrast with miraculous life, is loss. I lost my father during the height of the dreary cold winter. His passing ushered in a big snow storm. I always feel trapped inside of winter. It’s a natural outlet for me to find color and creativity to ease the difficulty. Im so thankful for the miracle of life. This little quilt was gestated in winter, born in spring, and gifted to a tiny human days before the start of summer.

One of the first things she sees in her nursery room is going to be a cheerful quilt made just for her.