the panda quilts: #2: holden baby quilt

while i was hard at work on my first quilt, my mind was already churning about what to make next. a very dear friend was expecting a baby (due in november), and that seemed like a perfect project (and i liked having a pretty firm deadline in mind). i had the discipline not to start working on quilt #2 until #1 was 100% complete, but in the meantime, i picked out fabrics.

i had a whole yard of a lisa dejohn animal print fabric (same one i used for my first zipper pouch) and i knew i wanted to incorporate that...those darn animals with their little cute eyes!  i knew my friend had chosen light green, yellow and chocolate brown baby bedding, so....i wanted to try to incorporate that as well.  when i went to the fabric store, i ended up picking up some lime green (!) and orange (!) filler fabrics. on paper, sounds like a crazy mish-mash, but they all blended together really well. 

i like the looks of those simply-designed patchwork square quilts, so i cut 108- 4 1/2" squares from my seven different fabrics.  the sewing of the squares and rows went very smoothly and went a lot faster than i imagined. (side note: since i worked on quilt #1 over a 3 month period, i was surprised when this whole top came together in an afternoon). the final thing ended up with 11 rows with 9 blocks & the finished size was about 36x44.

i made the back out of some leftover squares & yellow and green solids, but it looked awful. field trip to textile, where i purchased kona natural fabric & a tiny orange checkerboard print (and a chocolate brown for the binding).

i opted for horizontal straight line quilting again.  when it was complete, i washed it and sent it away to california! baby holden arrived on october 28, and i have a secret hope that this quilt will be his lifelong blankie.