Early last week as I wait, wait, waited for baby, I finally decided to just jump into my next quilt — a baby quilt for my new niece Elizabeth. Katie’s main request was that it not look too awfully baby-ish, so that Elizabeth doesn’t outgrow it too fast. Hopefully what I have in mind will fit the bill!
I don’t want to give too much away about the final design in order to leave an element of surprise for my sister (who reads this blog), but I’m using Eloise Renouf’s First Light collection from Cloud 9 fabrics. I saw it on Hawthorne Threads and really liked the nature theme and the soft colors. There will be white, pink, blue, and gray solids involved too in varying amounts. There will be pink, and a decent amount of it, but hopefully it won’t scream “baby girl quilt” too loudly.
Some of the design is paper-pieced, so I printed a bunch of templates and finally started cutting fabric on Sunday night. (As in, Sunday August 30th.) I finished up all the cutting on Monday, and started doing a bit of paper piecing on Tuesday night. I inevitably made several mistakes the first time around, like I usually do with paper piecing. It always takes me a few starts and stops to get the sequence down.
…And then I went into labor with Emma Charlotte early Wednesday morning! Needless to say I haven’t gotten back to working on this quilt yet, but I hope to as soon as life with a new baby starts to even out. That may be a few days or a few weeks, and for now I’m content to wait it out.
Ah, and thus begins a lifetime of confusing your children’s names. EMMA! No I mean Charlotte! I mean Emma! KID, whoever you are, GET OVER HERE!
Ha! Indeed. I have already called her Emma, Elizabeth (my new niece) and even Caroline (another top contender for her name).
I’m glad Charlotte arrived, even though it delays the quilt! 😉 I love the fabrics so I’m excited to see how it turns out.
LOL on confusing your girls’ names. I haven’t called Elizabeth other names but for the first week or so I did just call her “baby girl” a whole lot more than I called her Elizabeth, because that’s what we called her in the hospital before we decided on the name. Incidentally, Caroline was also a contender for Elizabeth’s name!
That would have been funny if you’d used Caroline! It was our first choice early on (months ago) before Charlotte moved into the lead. After Will and Kate named their baby Charlotte I had second thoughts, but in the end obviously we stuck with it.
Caroline was one of our top choices as well.
and believe it or not, we were in the hospital debating Charlotte vs. Briony *after* she was born.
Ah paper piecing! I’ve done one element of paper piecing on a recent quilt. I loved how it turned out, but man it can be confusing! I have a paper pieced quilt in my queue that I have put off just because I know the mind shift that needs to happen so I don’t utterly mess it up!
Can’t wait to see how your new quilt turns out!
I’ve done a decent amount of paper piecing and always love the result but yeah, it definitely takes more brain power than “regular” piecing. Even when I think I’m being super careful, I always make a few mistakes.
oh congrats of new baby Charlotte! She’s absolutely gorgeous. I love the fabrics you’ve chosen for the baby quilt, such soft lovely colours!
I really like the fabric, by the way.
Wow, taking on a paper pieced quilt with a newborn in tow… love the color palette. Congrats!
I know, I must be crazy. But I figure I can just do a tiny bit at a time, and it will get done eventually!