Now We are Three

Now We are Three

37" x 64"

Another Beautiful Mama- to-Be 

This lovely young woman was expecting her first child and had some reservations about colour when it came to decorating.  Her home is quite "Maria Kondo", which means there is a lot of white, no clutter, and is impeccably neat and clean.  This felt quite challenging to me when designing a quilt for her baby but I was up for it.  My first step was to go with her to a quilting store.  We went to "Sew Sisters" in Toronto and after much browsing and great deliberation, came up with a nice big stack of bolts with enough colour for me, but not too much for mama.

As we reviewed our choices, all together, the combination felt soothing.  We knew that the baby was a boy, and so leaning into blue felt right.

Deciding on the pattern was left up to me, and I chose this pattern by Kim Schaefer.  In her book, Cozy Modern Quilts.  She illustrates it in deep reds and yellows but I hoped that  it would work well in our muted tones.  What I loved best about the pattern were the three rectangles at the centre of every block.  This led me to name the quilt;  "Now We are Three".

As most quilters know, most every good quilt begins with a lot of cutting.

Once the blocks were created, it was time to lay them out.  This is always a great use of the dining room table.  I had decided to create the blocks  randomly but with as much contrast that I could generate, given our muted tones.  I was a bit worried that such a low contrast collection might not make for an interesting quilt.

Once arranged, it was time to quilt it.  I quilted it simply, with straight stitch.  

It seemed the best choice for the design.

The completed project.  

I was frankly quite pleasantly surprised.  

Despite the limited range of colour, the completed design does make a statement.  

I think it is  quiet but elegant.

I pieced the back as well.  If the parents feel that the front is too busy, they can just flip it over.

I had one completed block left over as well as scraps so I decided to create a pillow to match.

The making of the pillow

I had made the binding of the quilt out of left over scraps, and I had left over scrappy binding so I decided to make a flange.  I had never done that before and wasn't exactly sure how to deal with the corners but after a couple of trials and errors, I managed.

The corners seem to be a bit gathered and I am not sure what I did to create that effect, but I did turn the corners as I would have were it binding.

I was pleased with the end result

The front of the pillow is actually a 3 layered quilt, and I quilted it with free motion quilting of hearts.

The backside of the pillow is two overlapping pieces of plain cotton so this will be easy to remove for cleaning.

this is the pillow in its new home.

and here are the pillow and quilt being road tested on the parents' bed.

A beautiful baby boy enjoying it for the first time at 3 weeks old!  

He seems very comfortable with it.