Babies, Babies

As my friend Cristy likes to remind me and my close friends, "There will be 4 new babies in a matter of months!" My friend Jess is first, her daughter is due one month after her first born Payton turns one: the end of July.

For her baby quilt I followed the interests of Jess on her nursery pin board on pinterest (so helpful!) to create a quilt to go with her teal and coral nursery theme. It was a pretty simple quilt to make, I cut 5 inch squares for a finished quilt of 36" x 40" (or so). I was in a hurry to finish this quilt so for the quilting I did diagonal straight line quilting. It was also practice for my bed quilt, I wanted to make sure I could stay straight before doing a queen size!
I had a lot of fun picking out fat quarters at my favorite local quilt shop to make this one, the color scheme is so fun! While there I ran into one of the owners, Rick, who was very excited to here my news about twins on the way. He then went on to tell me about someone he knows with twins...it seems EVERYONE knows someone with twins and has to share the story. :)

 Jess, Megan, Myself, Cristy, & Mandy at my baby shower this weekend, it was so fun and I am so thankful for these wonderful friends!

Next up in the line up of  4 new babies are my own girls due Sep. 3rd. When we found out we were having twins instead of a singleton we were shocked, and I quickly looked for resources at the library and via internet. One thing I have read several times is that when it comes to twins strangers have no filter (as well as well meaning friends/family/co-workers). For example a co-worker has pointed out since I was about 15 weeks, "Man, you're getting big. You're going to be huge!" ...Yes, I will be! When grocery shopping Lee and I make bets on how many  strangers are going to ask, "So, when are you due?", of course at 27 weeks I measure the same as a 37 week pregnant woman with one (singleton). I have a way to go, and I'm OK with that; the bigger I get the bigger my girls get which means they will be healthy when they're born, hopefully the end of August. However, then we will be on display when out with the girls...so I guess I'll just get used to it. As one woman said regarding her twins, "Being a mother of twins is like being a circus side show. You're big during the 3rd trimester, then people are in awe of your two sweet babies." I'm so excited for my girls to be here and I will learn to be open to strangers admiring our girls. :)

Last in the baby line up is my friend Mandy's second born. She is due one week after me! Her house in Colorado is being renovated, plus her mom stays with her family 6 months out of the year, so baby #2 won't have a nursery for his/her first few months. However she did let me know when big brother Patrick moves to his bedroom downstairs the baby will be getting a grey nursery with gender specific accents. Since we don't know what baby #2 is I went with grey fabrics and then used some colorful strips of scraps down the length of the quilt. I outlined the strips with 1/2" and 1" boarders of white so the colors would pop next to the dark grey. Again, I was in a hurry to finish this quilt so I did random straight line quilting with light and dark grey threads.

For both their quilts I used solid flannel for the backing, coral for Jess and light grey for Mandy. I have used this a few times in the past, once for Payton's baby quilt. Jess informed me that she loved using this quilt for tummy time because the flannel backing kept the quilt in place on the carpet. I was really excited to here that the flannel had enough tack to keep it in place and will be using it for the back of my own baby quilts too!

I was really excited to use my new quilt label technique on these quilts too. I ordered a silk screen from a shop on Etsy, Smudged Textiles. First I made the template then submitted it to the owner, she quickly turned it into a silk screen and sent it to me. I love how easy it is to use this and how the label doesn't distract you from the quilt backing!