Two Baby Quilts at Once

Despite the hockey jerseys being ready to go, I've got a couple of baby quilts I have to get out of my system.  The baby quilt blocks we did at the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild retreat were so quick and energizing that I've decided to do the same pattern.  Here are the four fabrics cut into 2.5" strips.  After some intense strip sewing and ironing, here's the effect I'm going for on the finished projects.

One of these is going to my friend Cathy's fifth grandchild, who has another few months of incubating to go.  The second quilt will be a charity quilt that will go to Japan.  Interested?  Here's the link through the equilter website.  Thank you, blogger friend Carol G, for planting this idea! 

The quilt for Cathy's 4th grandchild incorporated some of these same fabrics! 

A Simple Baby Quilt

 One of the things I love about my quilt blog is that it's been a diary/record of what I have done. I know I should have been more diligent about keeping track of my work. Yesterday I was transferring a huge file of photos from my old laptop to a flash drive (lesson learned after losing all of my pictures from Turkey) and came across this quilt that I should have blogged about in March 2007. Cathy and I have been friends for over 50 years. Her daughters have married, and both have had 2 children. This quilt is for Cathy's only grandson Bradley. At the time I had just moved into my new quilting studio and was agog with projects and my college roommate's death. This quilt for Bradley is a simple one - horizontal stripes of varying widths of fabric - and simply quilted. This quilt may be simple, but the visual payoff is a big one. 44" x 60"

Speaking of big payoffs, today is my husband John's 70th birthday. Huge in so many ways! His hands are barely visible at the top of Bradley's quilt.