The two baby quilts are finally both done and delivered--woot!
Baby Quilt #1 started out as a Jacob's Ladder quilt.
As per episode 133 "In Which I Have a Story of Heartbreak and a Rotary Cutter", it had some issues. (You can't see the issues in this picture. So let's all imagine it was beautiful and now has a happy home being a quilt somewhere.)
Baby Quilt #1 became Baby Quilt Remix. And although (as per episode 134 "In Which It's Just Snakebit") it also had some issues, a little judicious hand-stitching dealt with the problem and it was duly mailed off a couple of days before Thanksgiving.
It's a Disappearing 9-Patch, arranged randomly, made from the scraps of Baby Quilt #1, with a few more added in since I didn't have quite enough of all of BQ1 fabrics left. (If you want to know about the colors, etc., you'll need to listen to the episode--don't want to take up space on that here again.)
I did a very light quilting in the ditch along the block lines and inner/outer border.
Hopefully it will provide many days of warmth and comfort to my little step-great-nephew. Or great-step-nephew. Or great-nephew-step, which is a dance craze soon to cross the nation. (Let's just call him my new little GSN and move on.)
And so I moved on to Baby Quilt #2 for my newly born great-niece. This one started out in my head as a completely different quilt. However, after all the grief of Baby Quilt #1, I seriously scaled down my plans and reminded myself with some vehemence, "It's a baby quilt! It's going to have all sorts of bodily fluids on it within a short period of time! Make it quick, simple, and highly washable!"
Thus, another Disappearing 9-Patch, named "Admit One." I chose to do this one in red, white, and black, which is good for babies as those are reputedly some of the first colors a baby can see. I can't swear to that. My babies couldn't tell me these things at that age.
I quilted straight lines diagonally across the quilt, varying the widths between lines. I don't know that I'd do this again on a baby quilt. 1) It's amazingly hard to quilt in a straight line diagonally across the quilt, and 2) it made for a slightly stiffer quilt. I didn't think I was doing enough quilting to really change the drape of the quilt, but it's definitely not quite as soft as the first baby quilt. I'm not sweating it--it just would've been easier to stick with ditch quilting, so I'll do that next time.
(You might want to pause here for a moment and compare the two quilts. Both Disappearing 9-Patches, looking completely different with different fabrics and a different layout. This design is just too much fun to play with!)
Oh, the "Admit One" thing? Here's the backing fabric. Mom is in theater, so it just had to be done. As my BFF/BQF Kate said when I found this fabric, "And now you can name the quilt, 'Admit One to the Family!'" Perfect! Hadn't even thought of that!
Here's the one who got admitted to the family. Looks like she likes her new quilt.