Fun and Done: The Chicago Cubbies Baby Quilt

When I first started working on the baby quilt this week, I didn't know what the gender of the baby-to-be but I knew the baby was going to a future Chicago Cubs fan.  The Chicago Cubbies Baby Quilt is for the son of Mary, one of my closet peep, who I swear it was only yesterday he was sitting in the backseat of his mother's car slurping his ice cream and driving me nuts but that's what little boys do.  

Knowing that he and his wife are big Chicago Cubs Fans and one day will be starting a family, I purchased these Chicago Cubs fabrics several years ago right after their wedding and these two pieces have been sitting in my stash waiting to be used.  I mentioned in a previous post that I find it challenging when I make a quilt with only a few fabrics, and this one was no exception.  Thankfully again, I had the right shade of red and the dot fabric, which is from my Crazy Mom's Good Neighbor stash and was the perfect shade and scale. Sad to say, the red dot print is almost depleted, there's no more to be bought,  but I have enough to make another Cubbie Quilt for myself since I love this quilt.

I had the perfect pattern to showcase the fabrics, the the Jungle Crosswalk Baby Quilt which I just made earlier this year for the 30 Quilt Blocks in 30 Days Quilt Blog Hop.  I made some modifications to this pattern as follows:

• only one focus print (3/4 yard) was used for the blocks (Yes Shannon, it does work)
• only two prints (one yard of each) were used for the checkerboard squares
• the blocks finished 8", so the focus print was cut 4-1/2" x 8-1/2" and the strips were cut 2-1/2", twenty-five blocks were sewn, thirteen of Type A and 12 of Type B and set with a five by five layout
• a 2" finished border was added after the top was made since I thought the quilt would look boring without it and once I found out the baby-to-be was a girl, I knew I could add more red dots to this quilt
• this quilt measures 44" square and I was able to use the WOF of the other Cub fabric since it was 60" wide.

Since I added the border to this quilt, I wasn't looking forward to having to bury all of the threads when I quilted each row/pass.  While I was basting the quilt, I had the bright idea that I could still do edge-to-edge quilting since the border was only 2" and I like how it looks.  As with the Jungle Crosswalk Baby Quilt, I just did simple quilting with diagonal crosshatch lines and stitch in the ditch around each block with red thread.

It's a good thing that I am a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan having grown up several miles from Wrigley Fields.  Otherwise, this quilt which screams Chicago Cubs would not have been so fun to make, like the time I made a quilt with Chicago White Sox fabric for a gift. This is the last of the baby quilts needed to be made and I am now ready to work on the QALs, which I am so far behind, but only for a short time since we leave for another vacation next week.  After that,  I will be free for big time Summer Sewing. Yay!

Linking up with:  My Quilt Infatuation, Needle and Thread Thursday,  Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish It Up Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday, Busy Hands Quilts, Finish or Not Friday

A Finally Finish: The Mauve-lous Panda Quilt

I love going on vacation, especially when it involves spending time with my Granddaughter Micah, but I really miss leaving my studio. I always bring a road project but it just not the same, is it? With that being said, I am SO behind on my QALs but before I can start working on them, I have a lot of baby busyness which needs to get done first. The Mauve-lous Panda Quilt, which was finally finished yesterday, is for "T" who is the owner of the local nail salon I go to and she is expecting her baby girl on June 1st.  I finished this quilt with days to spare.  In April, I had told "T" that I wanted to make a quilt for her baby and we were discussing themes which I am so glad we did. I was prepared to make her an Owl quilt, a popular baby theme, which to my surprise would have been a no-no since her family is from Vietnam and Owls would not be appropriate for a baby quilt since it symbolizes death according to her husband.  So "T" and I decided that Panda Bears would be a better choice and I was so glad to have found the mauve Panda print by Makower's from their Flo's Friends line.

I came up with this pattern because, pardon the pun, I couldn't bear to cut up the Panda's into small patches.  I was going to use nine patches for the sashing strips between the Panda panels but then I realized that I had the Checkerboard Express Block that I designed for Moda's Countdown to Christmas QAL last year which would be more interesting. I spent more time on finding the right fabrics for the sashing strips and backing since I knew I had to have had the fabrics in my stash than making the quilt itself. Personally, I feel if you are going to use less than five different fabrics in your quilt, they all have to play nice with each other; the colors just have to snap as I like to say. I really hunted through my Pink and Green stash to find the right shades. I used a Moda "Coral Rose" Grunge for the checkerboard and a Jade Green Dot from Benartex purchased many moons ago with a black and white gingham print and sure was glad I had enough of all three to make the sashing strips.

I quilted a combination of vertical organic lines with horizontal straight and crosshatch lines on the sashing strips and chose to use White Aurifil thread for the quilting which blended very nicely with the colors in the quilt.  

And yay for finding this sweet pink and black ric/rac stripe for the backing in my forever stash. This quilt measures 40"x42" so I was able to use WOF with an inch to spare on each side.  I'll be happily dropping off  the Mauve-lous Panda quilt to "T" this week.

As I mentioned before about my baby busyness, Micah will be visiting me this weekend since she will be attending the high school graduation party of our grandniece and getting to meet some family members who have not yet the little sweetie.  We'll also be dropping off the Jungle Crosswalk Baby Quilt to our niece, the mother of the high school graduate, who is expecting a baby boy in August.

  

I am so excited about seeing Micah so soon since it will only be six days since I've last seen her; usually it's weeks between visits.  Remember the Dot Is Crazy Quilt I made for her to use on her play porch?  I've committed a major Grandmother Quilt Crime by taking back the quilt since I found out after I had laid the quilt on the bench that her mother intended to leave it out all the time on their uncovered and unsecured front porch.  This may explain Micah's sad face in this photo knowing that Grandma was not going to let her keep the quilt.  I know that once a quilt is given away, the recipient is free to use it as desired but I'm sorry, I could not bear to see this quilt possibly getting ruined or stolen by outside forces. And it has nothing to do with my Mother's Day gift from Micah, a book about a Grandmother's Quilts which my DIL was so excited to give me. Unfortunately, she didn't read the story first because when Micah and I were reading the first page, the grandmother had passed away.  It should be no surprise that the book was taken back by the DIL.

There is a replacement quilt for the Dot Is Crazy quilt which is one I made several years ago as a test to see if fleece could be used instead of batting which happily worked out very well.  The nice thing is that fleece unlike batting does not need to be quilted as much and washes very well.  It's a nice, fluffy quilt, very colorful, the main focus print is from Joann's which I still have some left and I won't feel so bad if this quilt gets abused or goes missing because I can always make another one with the same fabrics.  This quilt will be going home with Micah, hopefully with no complaints.

I only have one more baby quilt to make by next weekend and then I can resume working on my QALs (Classic Meet Modern, Adult Playtime Plus and the Fireburst Mystery QAL and maybe I can get sidetracked by a DREAMi project which I also have started a few of them.  There is always something for me to sew which is good, right?

Linking up with:  My Quilt Infatuation, Needle and Thread Thursday,  Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish It Up Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday, Busy Hands Quilts, Finish or Not Friday