Maxwell's I Spy/Snowball
Quilt
size 36"x36" • cotton
top, polar fleece backing
My
second quilt was a baby quilt for good friends' new son Maxwell.
01.19.04
Ring
Ring
I pick up my phone
and retrieve a voicemail message from my friend Dan,
telling me that his son Maxwell David Costa Jacobsohn was born on
Friday, January 16th. I talk to him and his wife, my lovely friend
Gwen briefly and left them to babying the new one.
I
go into baby blanket mode.
01.20.04
Plan
A
Originally, my plan was going to make them a quilt that was an aerial
view of a lake, an orchard, a city, a farm and a neighborhood, with
rivers and streets. Like playmats and carpets I'd seen. I sketched
out a darn cute version months ago. I started designing an electronic
drawing of it to use as a pattern.
It
sat.
Later,
I thought about the amount of work it ws going to be, considering
the design had a good amount of applique. I was reluctant.
Then
I got the idea to make the whole thing out of polar fleece. Less work
since polar fleece doesn't fray, so I wouldn't have to worry too much
about the applique parts. And it's soft and it's easy to clean.
Great.
But
then I figured I'd have to buy all new fabric for it and then I'd
have more scraps in my always spilling over fabric cabinet.
Plan
B
Then
I decide to make a cotton quilt out of the copious amounts of fabric
I already have. I really like snowball
quilts, so I opted for that. So tonight I started cutting 100 3 1/2"
squares. Conveinent size because that's the width of my favorite quilt
ruler.
And
today I was reading Georgia Bonesteel's Easy
Does It Quilts at the library. Flipping quickly through the book,
I spooted her suggestion to use fleece as both batting and backing.
Brilliant!
Now I could use my existing cotton fabrics with the ease of
fleece.
01.21.05
Baby
Quilt Progress
Left: The 3.5" blocks in 100+ different fabrics. I had to
go buy a few 1/8 yards of some oranges, since those were lacking in
my fabric stash. Otherwise, I think I had some great fabrics. I chose
the boldest fabric I have and cropped some print carefully, to make
the final product a sort of "I spy" quilt.
Right: Here's a big bowl of 1.25" squares for the corners,
cut out of basic black cotton.
Left: Here's all of the blocks still strung together from
chain peicing them. Whenever I do chain piece, I marvel in how little
thread I use.
Right: Here's the finished stack of trimmed blocks.
Next step: Ironing. Then the fun of arranging the blocks!
But first, sweeeet sleeeep.
posted on 1/21/2004
01:47:48 AM
01.21.04
More
Baby Quilt Progress
Top: The newly ironed blocks
Bottom: 100 blocks sewn in pairs and lined up in the the
final order
posted
on 1/21/2004 11:44:05 PM
01.23.04
Even
More Baby Quilt Progress
Here's the finished center of the quilt. 100 snowball blocks, each
a different fabric and 30" square right now. Next, a black border,
then a black and white striped border, then another, wider black border.
Then the top will be done.
posted
on 1/23/2004 01:42:21 PM
01.23.04
Finished
Baby Quilt!
Here's the final baby quilt all quilted and signed and all pesky threads
trimmed.
Working with the fleece wasn't too bad. It can stretch around a bit,
so I used lots of safety pins to baste the layers together. I love
that the quilt is very soft with the fleece and that's it's not too
bulky.
I quilted it along the inside and outside edge of the two black borders
(four consecutive squares), and little diamonds in the corners of
the blocks. The only futzy part of the whole project was machine sewing
the diamonds. Mostly because it was loads of stopping and starting
and I tend to scrunch up my shoulders big time. But it went fairly
quickly.
I signed the quilt with fabric paint in small letters on the alternating
1/4" black and white stripes:
"MAXWELL DAVID COSTA JACOBSOHN - JANUARY 16 2004 - MADE WITH LOVE
BY BRANDY AGERBECK"
I tried to keep it small and worked into the design. Normally, I would
have done it on the black, but the fleece was too fuzzy to paint on
and I thought it would be a bit off to sew a cotton patch onto the
fleece.
Once the paint I used to sign it (with baby's name, birthdate, and
"made with love by Brandy Agerbeck) dries, I'll iron the fabric paint
to set it. Tomorrow morning, I'll wash it, dry it and put it in the
mail! I'm feeling very, very snazzy considering Dan called me Monday
morning to tell me he and Gwen's great news and it's in the mail tomorrow.
Rock on.
posted on 1/23/2004
03:07:09 PM
02.24.04
Another Happy Customer*
Remember the baby quilt I made at the end of last month? There's Mr.
Max enjoying in above! I'm learning baby vernacular, but I hear the
quilt is used for "tummy time."
I hope he gets lots of good use and enjoyment out of it!
The whole quilt-making story is here.
*Yes,
it was a gift, no he's not truly a customer.
posted on 2/24/2004 12:48:08 PM
