Oh, Baby!

Last weekend, daughter dear and I had the pleasure of hosting a baby shower for my goddaughter, Jessica. Besides silly games, tasty food, and goodie bags, it seemed like we just had to have some sweet fabric bunting. I was lucky to happen upon a tutorial by my guild friend, Louise of I'm Feelin' Crafty. She includes a pattern for the triangles, which I thought were the perfect size. I chain pieced all the triangles, and then happily made scrappy gray binding right out of the scrap basket. I found that 20 triangles sewn edge to edge made a 10' bunting, of which I made 2. I attached the binding with a narrow zig-zag stitch, which made the buntings secure while adding a decorative touch. And now that the shower's over, they will be sweet hanging in baby boy's room, right?

Of course I wanted to make baby a quilt. Jess, Rachel, and I happened to already share a baby quilt ideas Pinterest board, where Jessica clued me in to a few of her special favorites. I chose the Star Cluster, an enlarged version of a block by Judy Martin. Judy's block pattern makes a 12" or 16" block, where the baby quilt measures 40" square.

photographed before washing

The front of the quilt is a scrappy mix of baby's nursery colors, all set on Kona white. For batting, I used a baby-sized Pellon Legacy Wool Batting, fully washable, and therein lies just a bit of an issue with this little quilt. Though the batt description says otherwise, I did experience some bearding after a wash. If anyone else has had this experience with wool batt, I'd love to hear about it . . .

The quilt's backing is a teal and navy print from Waterfront Park by Violet Craft. For quilting, I cross-hatched each block using my machine's serpentine stitch as long and wide as it would go. All piecing and quilting was done with Aurifil 50wt #2021 (Natural White), the cone that stays on my machine for most of my everyday sewing. And binding was another scrappy mix, this time of white on white prints.

photographed after washing

The Star Cluster was a perfect block for supersizing and using a varied palette. Plus I think it's super sweet for baby.

This project is on my 2015 Q1 Finish-A-Long list.
Linking up with Finish it Up Friday.