Some friends are expecting their first child later this year, and I have been working with them on a design and fabric selection to make a baby quilt. They are not going to learn the gender until birth, and other than not wanting something that read as stereotypically gender related, I had pretty free reign to come up with a design and color palette. I noodled on this for approximately one minute before sitting down and drawing out a design that I’ve been thinking about for a few years.
Transparent Building Blocks
It didn’t take long to finally sketch out the idea: I wanted to combine basic shapes (in this case a circle, square, and right triangle) in a cascading series. The shapes themselves remind me of the big, chunky wooden building blocks I had as a child. Thankfully my friends liked the sketch as much as I did; that was quick and easy!
Next, I went looking around in my stash and mocked up lots of colorway options for them to consider.
White Background Options
Kona Shadow Background Options
Kona Navy Background Options
I was a bit concerned I was sending over too many options, but my friends were able to narrow it down to the light green on navy option. It’s one thing to look at a lot of options together, so the next step was to physically pull the fabric out of my stash and see the combination together.
Transparent Building Blocks Fabric Pull
Although getting a good photograph of the fabric pull proved to be challenging. The fabrics are Kona Navy, Freespirit Light Jade, and Kona Enchanted. The greens in the photograph appear a bit more muted and lighter than they do in person to me.
Final Layout – Based on Fabric Pull
As you can see in the mock up above, we opted to float the center of the quilt with a small border to give the design a bit of space. The quilt top will measure 54″ square when pieced.
With the final go ahead, I dove into the more onerous task of calculating yardage and piece counts. In fact, I went ahead and wrote out a full quilt pattern that will be offered in three sizes. I’ll work through testing the pattern as I make the baby quilt and hopefully have both a quilt and pattern release to share in the next month or so. Time to cut some fabric!
I really like this design! Well done!
nifty!
Perfect idea for a baby quilt and I love that you were able to give your friends so many options. I like the dark background a lot!
Love this! Just perfect for a baby quilt (or any size quilt, for that matter). Simple, but sophisticated.
Love the design. Perfect for baby at any age.
Ooh, I like this one Yvonne! Great baby/toddler/teen through adult lap – sized quilt! Love the green on navy too, another one of my faves.
A very attractive quilt. I like the modern fell with a little traditional in it. The greens really look nice against the navy blue. Congrats.
Works for me!
You answered my question on IG (line drawing or shapes/color for first mock-up), but coming here to the blog brings me an array of your handiwork and a multitude of choices. They are all very interesting and give different effects. I love the continued use of transparency!
Love the way this came together. It is so nice when someone is not intimated by the choices. Floating it is perfect.
I love this design and it is awesome to show so many different layouts with the different color options!
Lots of fun options, I’m not sure I could have picked just one version.