Chevron baby quilt
Baby nephew Jack's chevron quilt is all done!I really, really love how this quilt looks. It was inspired by a beautiful similar quilt by Cynthia of Hyacinth Quilts, but I changed up the color placement a bit and added more vertical strips in the middle of the chevrons. (So I guess this that maybe makes this more of a herringbone?)
What I did not like was the actual work of piecing it. Ugh, those chevrons! I found that I had to stop and trim the sides of my chevron strips every time I added another strip, and I had to make sure the seam was lined up with the 45-degree angle on my cutting mat as I trimmed. Otherwise the 45-degree angle of the seams got a little wonky and it wasn't exactly on the 45. Sew I had to sew a seam, stop and trim. Sew a seam, stop and trim. I'm sure there's a more efficient way to do this, but I couldn't seem to wrap my brain around it! If I make this pattern again, I might try paper-piecing it in sections instead.
But the end result is exactly what I was envisioning—maybe even better. So it was worth all the work.One of the things I like the most about this quilt is how the solid gray and white herringbone design that covers most of the quilt almost functions as negative space. Technically, I don't think it would really qualify as such, but that gray-and-white background serves many of the same purposes that negative space would. But it's just a little more interesting. And it gives the design a whole lot more movement. I love it.
It seemed to take ages to piece the top, but then it took all of an hour to quilt it. I just quilted in zig zags following the lines of the chevrons. Simple and soft for a baby quilt.The white binding was a difficult choice for me—since it's a baby quilt, I wasn't sure white was the most practical color for the binding. But with all the white bordering all the gray, green and blue chevron pieces, I just couldn't imagine this quilt with anything else. The binding feels like it's an extension of that white background, and that's how it should be, I think.
My sister-in-law is a veterinarian, and baby Jack is sure to grow up surrounded by animals, so I was determined to get more animal prints onto the back. As a result, the back is kind of a hodge-podge of mismatched animal fabrics. I know I've never been big on novelty prints, but I thought I had a lot more animal prints in my stash than I actually do! These two were purchased especially for this quilt—the adorable dachsund print is from Cloud 9, and the porcupine print is from Lecien. Soooo flipping cute. (And doesn't the zig zag quilting look great on the back, too?)
So this one's off to Jack for him to enjoy now! But you all should definitely stop back by here tomorrow, because after all the discussion of FriXion pens in Wednesday's post, specifically about whether their ink really does come out of quilts, I decided this quilt would make a perfect test case. I ironed it, I washed it, I put it in the freezer, and I took pictures every step of the way! I've already posted lots of pictures of my tests on Instagram, but I'm also going to do a post tomorrow rounding up my findings for all those who are interested in these pens as quilt marking tools.