For the Trees

This was possibly my favorite quilt I made last year, maybe my favorite quilt so far! It was completely improvised, which was a first for me and I had so much fun with the freedom, not to mention nerves of "what if it sucks!?"

This was a quilt for a friend's third and final baby. Her oldest boys' quilts are here and here. With baby #2 we were all sure it would be a girl...I used a charm pack of Sherbet Pips for the quilt, including the pink tones thinking just maybe we'd all be right and they would have a little girl. Although I think this is still a neutral quilt, I do feel bad for MR. Ryker that he ended up with a slightly feminine quilt. :) Although, these friends are not the type to car at all.

I wanted this quilt to be neutral, but with bits of pink and purple, because even boys can like these colors. I started making it at a time that I was organizing my scraps in my office/craft room and I discovered SO MANY scraps that needed to be used up, plus a ton of tan/beige fabric. I wanted to try out piecing together a block to make a shape after being inspired by Penny's work at Sew Take a Hike, so I got to work on creating a tree with a bicycle. I loved it. Notice the little bird in the tree too?

Next I went in search of fabric to use and add to this quilt and I found these at a local fabric store. I was really lucky to find the tree fabric from the Critter Community line. The trees were perfect to go with my pieced tree block, and the recycle fabric would go great with my theme of using scraps to make this quilt.

I cut out some trees in a wonky style, then started to piece on scraps using Aneela Hoey's tutorial. Other than looking here to see how to do this no other pattern or plan was in place for this quilt. Our office/craft room was a mess during this process as you can see below!

I started to line up my tree blocks on the design wall as I worked and when I felt they were finished I pulled out all the beige/tan fabric I could find and sorted them out into piles to create larger blocks for the quilt front. I included the recycle fabric for part of the front. The rest I have saved in my stash for a future project...not sure what (I love this fabric!).

The back of the quilt is the Critter Community fabric I used to cut trees from, and the binding was left over scraps of binding from past quilts that I pieced together. So much of my stash was used in making this quilt and it felt great to get rid of pieces of fabric that were small but I didn't want to throw out. For the quilting I again stepped out of my comfort zone and did a tree bark quilting design with several knots on the quilt like the one below.

 

 

This quilt may be one of my favorites! And I am very excited to meet the recipient (a GIRL!) in one week when her Momma, family, and my other wonderful friends and their children come to see me and throw me a BABY SHOWER!

That's right, I am expecting...not one...but TWO BABIES!! Our twin girls will be here by the end of August. So you can imagine the lack of quilting and blogging that will soon be happening. (as if I have really done that great with blogging in the first place!) Also, the amount of projects I am trying to finish up before their arrival seems to be never ending! :) Two friends are pregnant with their 2nd child, plus a friend and old co-worker is due with baby #1 in December. I have A LOT of work to do this summer, more posts to come!