my current quilting project

a friend of mine who is having her third baby (first girl) in august asked me if i could turn a pack of (amy butler!) fat quarters that she’d purchased just before her first child was born into a quilt for this upcoming addition to her family.  i decided to use it as an excuse to purchase and try out the mixtape quilt pattern from oh fransson.  this is the first pattern i’ve used since my first quilt–a big zig from denyse schmidt’s book.  i’d forgotten how quickly a quilt top can come together when the math is already done for you!  (but it might have been even better if i’d squared up each block as i went along….) so well-written and very worth the $10.  i loved that it was an electronic file-no waiting!   enough chit-chat, how about a photo?

and the lighting is bad and i haven’t ironed it, but i think you can get the idea….  so now i’m pondering the quilting style that will work best for this quilt.  i recently had the honor of becoming one of the administrators for the flickr group called “modern quilting stitches:  life beyond stippling!” and i’ve used my new status as an excuse to scour flickr looking for interesting ways to quilt quilts.  i don’t want to spend tons of time quilting this one (i’ve got at least two more quilts that i’m working on in my head and i’m antsy to get them started!), so i’m thinking about some simple lines.  so then the only other decisions are…. do i go wavy and organic like this or this or do i go straight?  and if i go straight do i make wide rows like this or skinny rows like this or a mix of the two like this?  chime in with your opinions!  the back (if it matters to your decision) will be a bold pink flannel and i haven’t decided about the binding yet.  i think she wants it to be a crib quilt.  i’m leaning towards the first, second or last options because i don’t want it to be too stiff (with super dense quilting) and the rows of blocks aren’t terribly well lined up, so straight lines of stitching might be a bad idea.

in other fabric/quilty news, i received my end of a swap with one shabby chick in the mail a few days ago:

yippee!  the goldfish in bags with silly names print from heather ross!  and look at her generous additions–aliens, kittens and high-heel shoes prints, what fun!  and no, i don’t have a specific project in mind yet, but i’m going to do my very best not to hoard these forever.  i’m working on my end of the swap now, but with the july 4th holiday looming large in my weekend, i’m not sure how quickly i’ll be able to finish.  thanks for sharing this with me, amber!

don’t forget to leave a comment voting for your favorite quilting design for the mixtape quilt!