My first quilt!

I finally finished Baby Amy's quilt, it's been washed and is now drying. I still need to put a name and date on it but thought I'd share some pre-wash photos I took between rain showers yesterday. It's photo-less at the moment because Amy's mum Jess reads this blog and she hasn't told me yet whether she wants it to be a surprise when it arrives or not! So you'll need to click through to the photos on Flickr for the time being. Hah, she couldn't resist looking so here are the photos:



The quilt is based on the Pink Bliss pattern from Amy Butler, but after assembling my scraps and buying a few more (sorry Jess, I know I said I wouldn't but I had to!) the blocks were looking awfully busy and jumbly. I was in despair because I still had vertical strips to add in and it was going to be horrible. Then Mat suggested putting white strips instead, and then to put strips around the outside too. I think it totally saved it - instead of being heinous it's not bad. I'm still not thrilled with my fabric choices but on the whole I quite like it which is probably not too bad for a first effort!

When the time came to get fabric for the back I had an awful time:



Because there was such an assortment of colours and patterns on the front and no single unifying theme, nothing really matched nicely. I ended up with an Amy Butler dot fabric and a zigzag fabric for the binding. In the end the zigzag was too much and I went looking for a green. The quilt shop I went to had virtually no solids (!!) so I was faced with a green with small circles on it, or a very long drive from virtually one end of Auckland to the other to the next shop - I went with the green. It's ok, but not perfect.

The one thing I really AM pleased with is the strip across the back:



I've often admired these on other quilts but thought they were just a neat design feature - until I got my backing fabric and realised I'd have to put a join in it, so might as well make it an interesting one! This time I was able to select fabrics that I felt really 'went' with each other - including the little Loobylu embroidery I did with this in mind.

Hazel's desperate for me to make her a quilt and I will start seriously considering it after Christmas I think. This has been a good learning experience in terms of finding out what I like in a quilt and what I don't like, how I like colours to match and so on. It always bugs me how conventional my colour choices are when I'm left to my own devices, or how hard I find it to judge what looks good and what doesn't. I think I'd rather let a professional do it for me to be honest (for the moment anyways), so I'm watching all the reports out of the Quilt Market that are on blogs at the moment, evaluating the new fabric lines and so on. Of course Hazel would LOVE a very pink quilt, but I saw a lovely quilt made from Art Gallery fabrics at the quilt fabric that has much more muted tones that I loved. I guess it's a toss-up between a quilt she'll love now but may not suit an older girl, and a quilt that will last a life-time but might not have such a rapturous reception now. I suppose the former option is probably the best but that Art Gallery quilt was gorgeous!