While things have certainly been progressing for me professionally in quilting, it has meant a lot more “secret sewing” recently. It can be fun and exciting to work on projects behind the scenes, but I honestly really love when I can share more about the process of a quilt as I go along on my blog. So, I am very excited to have a few social sewing projects coming up!
Baby Carter Quilt
To start, I will be making another baby size Lucent quilt for some very close friends. The dad-to-be and I worked closely together on the SpaceShipTwo program, and he is like a brother to me. His wife is a very close friend – she’s someone that has the ability to bring out the best in everyone around her. I am so excited for them as their family is growing. Oh, and they also have an adorable cat whom I have had the pleasure to “cat sit” for on many occasions over the years. I pretty much adore the entire family and I am looking forward to getting to know Baby Carter soon as well.
The Lucent quilt design was quickly decided upon in January, just before my friends moved away (but thankfully they are only about a 5 hour drive away). Once they were settled in after the move, the mom-to-be initially discussed elephants, ducks, and yellow as a general them for the baby quilt. I put together the first layout to just get the conversation started, and she really liked the gray, yellow, and white elephant print. From there, we decided that an additional color was needed and we found a fun mulit-color polka dot print that worked. I also quickly transitioned to a Essex Graphite background for more contrast. From there, it was a process of selecting and trying different prints and moving the placement around to quilt to settle on the final layout.
Baby Carter Lucent Quilt Fabric
The fabric for the quilt arrived early this week. The elephants are a soft flannel and will also be the backing for the quilt, and the multi-color polka dots will be the binding. I just have one project to finish up (that I will share with you next week) before I can cut into these fabrics and get started. The baby shower is being held on April 1st (no joke! har har), so I have plenty of time to get this ready to gift to the family.
I am also going to participate in (and am a sponsor of) the Freefall Quilt Along that is being hosted by Sandra @mmmquilts! The QAL starts March 20th and we will be making a 38-inch square quilt to be finished by June 15th – so the pace is very reasonable and I am really looking forward to sewing along. Sandra has shared a few posts about the QAL already that you might want to read over to see if you are interested in joining us:
Freefall QAL Fabric
I picked some Kona White for my background, a Northcut black and white star print for my “shadow leaf” and a selection of jewel toned Alison Glass 2017 Sunprints for the small leaves in the QAL. I’m already looking forward to the start of the QAL next week!
And just yesterday, Rebecca of Bryan House Quilts and Sarah of no hats in the house announced the 2017 Pantone Quilt Challenge. I am going to put my thinking cap on and see if I can come up with something to enter (the submissions will be open May 19-29, 2017). The Pantone color of the year, Greenery, is so much more enticing to me than their color(s) of the year from last year.
I am excitedly linking up with Midweek Makers and Let’s Bee Sewcial to see what others are making and working on this week as well.
Yay! I love Yvonne Social Sewing! 🙂 Though I’m totally stoked your quilting is getting out there too. That Freefall QAL looks cute! And I’m considering the Pantone Challenge. The colors before have never really excited me, but this one does! So…maybe? I guess I’ll need to think on it.
Baby Carter’s quilt is adorable. I love the elephant print. Glad that you are getting to share your projects. Looking forward to see the secret ones soon.
Yvonne, I love Carter’s quilt to be! The color combination is great! It’s inspiring me to make a second Baby Lucent quilt for a friend at work. It’ll also help me work on my Y-seams (which didn’t always come out great in my first baby lucent). Thanks so much for all that you do for us!
I was recently thinking the same thing about some of the secret sewing I have scheduled over the next few months! I just love that elephant print and love green/yellow/grey for baby quilts. 🙂
My guild is doing a Greenery challenge already so I’m happy to enter booth (haven’t decided on anything yet though!). Social sewing is the best, and I sooo empathize with the secret sewing problem. The baby quilt fabrics are so sweet!
Yvonne, I really like the bright crisp fabrics and quilt block you did with them. I’m thinking I might need to participate in the Pantone Quilt Challenge. It sounds like fun and I definitely like using green!
I’m glad you’re balancing the ‘secret sewing’ end of things with the ‘social sewing’ end of things! And of course I’m SUPER glad you have chosen to participate in my very first QAL. eeep! all over again in my heart. And much gratitude for so willingly and without hesitation being a sponsor. Moments of such joy like this are much-needed in today’s oft-hostile world. Your colour choices rock, on both quilts, and I’ll be watching to see what you do with the Pantone challenge.
I struggle with secret sewing, too. It makes it hard to blog when you can’t share. 🙂 Your social sewing projects are so bright and cheery!
Your baby quilt for Carter will be lovely. Thanks for sharing your process and your preliminary designs. It’s nice to see how the design evolves with color and value placement. Thanks for the reminder about the Pantone challenge, too.
You are going to be busy busy busy, but such great quilts. I love the baby quilt it is going to be too cute!!!
The baby quilt will be adorable and I am sure they will absolutely love it. I’m excited to hear you are sewing along with the Freefall QAL. Those brightly colored prints will really pop against the black and white fabrics.
Baby Carter, the layout you chose is perfect, showing the green so well. I have my fabrics almost sorted for the freefall quilt along, a dark green with NZ ferns on might fit quite well for the shadow leaf.
That’s going to be a fun quilt – love your fabric choices! Thank you for sharing on Midweek Makers
I love the fabrics you chose for the quilt along. Your quilt will be stunning. Thanks for sharing your process on working out the fabrics for Lucent. It will be a lovely quilt as well.
Hello Yvonne! I absolutely love and adore the fabrics you and your friend have chosen for the Baby Carter Quilt! As always, since I discovered your blog, you have been such an inspirational quilter for me in so many ways. I am so thrilled that everything in the quilting world is growing and the doors continue to open wider, along with the fact that you are enjoying all of the rewards it offers. As most of the commenters have stated, it is great that you will be able to share more on the social side of your quilting. As long as it makes you happy!! Have a great day!
So many fun projects you are working on. If I had to make a baby question let by April 1st, I would be nervous. Somehow, I am sure you’ve got this tho! I thought about Sandra’s QAL but I feel like I have too many things in process right now. It will be fun to follow along tho.
What a fun quilt for baby Carter. Nice color and print combo! I’m thinking about the Pantone challenge as well! Greenery will be nice to work with, especially if Spring will ever arrive.
Oh, those elephants are so cute, they’re going to make such a lovely cuddly quilt! And I too love those Sun Prints, I’ve just got some in and can’t stop starting projects with them!
I’m in love with those elephants! I did my son’s nursery in mint and chocolate colors with elephants so this just makes me smile. Oh how I wish I could do more social sewing in QALs but I’m sticking to the promise that I made to myself to be selfish and not take on a lot of sewing projects this year in order to get my stress levels and health back to where they need to be. So I’ll live vicariously through you as you participate!
The Baby Carter quilt is very cute. Looks like you’ve got some fun new projects to play with.
I Love the baby quilt, they always make you feel good to look at. I am also glad you mentioned the Freefall Spring Quilt Along. I have wanted to make a quilt with the leaf block and this one is perfect for me to try. I just finished pulling fabric from my stash and have it laying on my bed to make sure of my choices. So far I am happy how the colors go.
Lovely fabrics, and this is a pattern of yours that I love. I’m not brave enough for y seams myself, but it looks great when you do it! Do I understand correctly that you are using both flannel and regular quilting cottons in the top? I’m curious how you like that and how it feels. I’ve so far avoided mixing because I feel like mixing flannels and non-flannels is one of those “quilt sins” but I’m not sure if it should be!
I always love seeing your design process. Thanks for sharing. 😉 I’m looking forward to seeing your social sewing.
Love the baby quilt colours and layout! I have way too much going on right now in the sewing room and way too little time to spend in there so unfortunately will not be quilting along with you but I can’t wait to see your quilt. Those fabrics are gorgeous!
Secret sewing is hard! Baby Carter’s quilt is going to be adorable 🙂 Have fun sewing it and sharing those progress pictures as you go!
I love this baby quilt. The colours are wonderful. And I’m already behind for Sandra’s QAL. Gotta go find the fabric requirement post. Not. Enough. Hours.
I have done things rather the wrong way round having seen the finished top already and then reading this post – but great to see the design process and how fabric placement can make such a difference to the finished quilt.