Busy Quilting Bee

Ok -- so this post isn't really about quilting -- but I have a baby blanket to show you very soon.

This is a receiving blanket I've made for my friends Chris and Moira. It looks quilted, but it really isn't.

Some pics for you coming soon.

I'm going to take some pictures to show you lovely friends of mine of the fabric and what things are looking like. But, right now things are really hectic what with unpacking and everything -- so it will be a few days before I'm all set up and ready to start cutting and sewing. :-)

So I've figured out that I need about 2.5 yards of the brown material and about 2 for the white on the inside without the border.

Now, I just need to decide how big I want the border.

So, this is the pattern I've decided on for MJ. I've showed him the pattern and he really likes it. Actually, I started working on this pattern which is a copy of a vintage (I think) quilt from a website I saw, and I showed him how I was piecing it together on Paint and he liked it, so I decided to show him the other ones. And I think he liked this one the best.

Also, this is going to take significantly less time than the other one. Plus, I can spend more time actually quilting rather than simply spending the time on the piecing, so I can make a quality blanket for him rather than just a mess of a pattern.

I think this is much more sophisticated than the other designs I was looking at -- and I love the pattern that emerges from such a little bit of arranging.

Dimensions? Well -- I have some questions about the size of the quilt.

If I make the squares 5" each, then the quilt will be about 95x110. Is that too big? He only has a twin sized bed, but his blankets are double so when he buys a double bed one day then he'll be able to put them on that. This seems a little big.

But, if I make them 4" each, then the quilt will be about 76x88. I could make them 4" and have more than an 8" white/cream border around the outside, which might be nice as well.

What do you think?

Here's the Laura Fisher Quilt:

This is a patch idea that I've come up with with help from the Make Your Own Contemporary Quilts book that I saw at Chapters today. I wish I had a pic to show you, but I made this patch up in Paint so you could see what I'm talking about.



The patch is 10x10, made from various scrappy or new ribbons with different textures and finishes (some satin, some velvet, some cotton strips maybe to save costs, or anything I can find around the house.)

They'll be sewn together with a visible stitch that croses over between the ribbons.

The patches are "mounted" onto a cotton square, 10x10 and then sewn together horizontal to vertical. Sort of like this: