Sew Crazy

Early on in my pregnancy I had this crazy idea that I was going to sew all my nursery bedding myself. While I know I could have done it, my mom politely reminded me that I don't like to sew all that much.  My instinct was to protest but I knew she was right.  So instead of sewing a whole set, I decided that I wanted to make some sort of keepsake for my first baby and started researching baby quilts.

I've never quilted before so at first I looked at a lot of basic patterns with easy patchwork styles.  While these would be easy, I found them to be really boring.  Then one day when browsing quilts on pinterest I came across Frozen Knickers on Etsy and fell in love with her patterns.  I picked out the dots n' boxes pattern as it goes perfectly with the painted rug I just finished.

I knew right away that I would mimic the grey background and white box border to let the boxes be the star. At first I looked to buy a bunch of fat quarters from Joann's. I quickly learned that most of the patterns were just too small for this kind of quilt. I then started flipping through page after page of fabrics on Spoonflower and Fabric.com.  I was worried about the colors on the screen not matching but decided to take a chance and order 1/4 yards from Fabric.com (Spoonflower was a little pricey for this project).  Here are some of the fabrics I bought:

This particular pattern involved a lot of ironing, cutting, and then sewing in phases.  *Note - I took lots of pictures of this at first but then realized that I was giving the pattern away and didn't want to rip off our Etsy friend at Frozen Knickers.  What I'll tell you is the pattern was clear and the steps were easy, but tedious.  Overall it took me about a month mostly working in the evenings and a weekend or two. The finished front looked great but my lines weren't so straight if you looked up close.  Regardless, I thought it was good enough that I wanted to find someone to quilt all the pieces for me (my Janome isn't that fancy).  A quilting friend at work recommended a nearby quilter who not only put all the pieces together but did the binding too!  Totally worth it in my opinion.  Stay tuned for the finished product!