#BabyNolan

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there lived a girl who thought it was a good idea to make quilts for people, and *tell* them about it, before they were finished...

I honestly don't know what's wrong with me.  I have a huge pile of quilts, that are in various stages of incompleteness, and yet, I still have an overwhelming, irresistible urge to make a quilt when I know a new baby is coming.  I think it's just a sign that I love my friends, and I really love babies.

My very good friend (and old boss) recently had his first child. Now this is the boss who I promised a quilt to for his birthday 3 years ago, and it's still in pieces on my desk waiting for me to finish it, so I knew better than to promise one for the baby. And I restrained myself, I really did!! I lasted right through 8 months, but then, at the last minute, 2 days before the baby was due., he showed me photos of the nursery and the next thing I knew I was in Spotlight buying coordinating fabrics and cutting up a storm.

At the time, they still didn't know if they were having a boy or a girl, but had done a really lovely fairly gender neutral nursery with lots of grey and gold with pops of mint and coral - yum.

Have I mentioned that bub's mum is one of those fabulously stylish women, who always looks immaculate and her house is just as put together? Meanwhile, I am lucky if I remember to wash my hair, and feel as if I gave up on makeup about 4 years ago... :-/

So I knew I was in over my head in trying to make something for their "interior decor" but I couldn't resist.

Being the fabulously stylish woman she is, I couldn't resist the allure of chevrons.  I know I'm behind the 8 ball on that band wagon, but there was no way this family suited fussy cuts or intricate piecing, or improv, or wonky anything... It needed clean lines and crisp edges, but I still wanted it to be special and unique and fun for me to pay with, so chevrons it is!

Although, having now made them, I'm never, ever doing them again.  they were a pain in the patootie! I'm sure there's a simpler way, and that I made it hard for myself, but oi, this was annoying, trying to line everything up properly, and get the right angles consistent, and then when I was piecing the row together, trying not to loose too much depth, becuase I kept getting the quarter inch spacing wrong on the start, so they're skinnier chevrons than originally intended.

 

Again, originally I planned to do 2 rows of chevrons and then leave the rest grey, but it felt a bit empty.  Then I added the strips and it felt cluttered.  It took an annoying amount of time just moving strips up and down and replacing the thickness of the alternating grey to get me to a happy place.

You will also notice I added a navy blue to my mix.  Without it, it felt a bit wishy washy and lackluster.  Although, adding all those extra strips (and extra colour) really made this a lot bigger than intended.  I had planned to make a cute little baby quilt, and ended up with something closer to single bed size...

I chose not to include any wadding and backed it in a yummy grey flannel.  We live in Queensland, Australia, so it's rare that it gets genuinely cold here, and we're going into summer, so I'd rather make something they can use straight away... you know, before they redecorate and these colours become useless ;-).  

 I did super simple echo quilting of each strip, just sewing *just* outside the colour on the grey. I only sewed around the pink love hearts in the chevrons (because, of course, with me starting this so late in the pregnancy, baby was born before I finished and now we *know* it's a girl).

And then the other day, I sat myself down and sorted out the binding.  I love satin binding for children, because I love the idea of something soft and silky that the little people can run through their fingers and I have memories of that soothing feeling of worrying a teddy's manufacturing tag, because it was silky, and like the idea of passing on that comfort.

Usually, when I want this satin binding, I buy premade binding in whatever length  I want and just have at it, but my local Spotlight didn't have want I wanted.  I checked a couple of times over a couple of different weeks, and still no joy, so eventually, I just took myself to the piles of actual satin and bought a half metre and made it myself.  So it's straight grain, which is not ideal, but working with the satin was such a PITA that I doubt I'll ever do it this way again.  So slippy, and frayed like the dickens and threads kept pulling... 

But it's done.  I machine bound it, just to say it was finished (also with the fraying of the satin, I felt like it needed the extra reinforcing), and it is terrible.  I swear I've watched all the tutorial on machine binding, but I just can't make it neat.  Let's all stick with the "home made touch" story, if anyone asks, ok :-)

And now I get to go and meet the baby!! Because I wasn't allowed to meet her until I finished her welcome to the world present (my new rule to force me to finish baby quilts - it seems to have worked, ok ;-) ).

Oh, and why #BabyNolan? Because baby's mum is an instagram addict, lol.

E xx