baby shower | Night Quilter

I went easy on myself this month for A Lovely Year of Finishes (ALYoF) and set my April goal at finishing the quilt top for my sister-in-law’s baby shower yesterday. I made a totally pinkalicious Hazel Hedgehog quilt featuring a giant sized hazel and a fun heart speech bubble I created just for this project. Did I meet my goal? Yes!

hazel hedgehog flimsy finish — Hazel Hedgehog “Hello, Love” baby quilt flimsy finish.

Even with the heart speech bubble addition, I was able to finish the flimsy (quilt top) before the baby shower. Since I finished this flimsy in the midst of a rare “full mommy sew day” when my mother-in-law took the kids for a play day, I decided to forge ahead and start basting and quilting little (giant) Hazel.

After a particularly late night and early morning quilting/binding session, I managed to quilt the entire background and speech bubble, AND make and attach the binding. Normally, I would complete all of the quilting before binding, but since I really wanted a presentable quilt for my sister-in-law Stephanie’s baby shower, and since the unquilted portion is completely enclosed in quilted background, I decided to get a little cheeky and bind the quilt before completely quilting.

quilt wrapped nicely — The purple bag with pink tissue and ribbon on the left contains the quilt.

With the quilt bound, I was able to roll it, wrap it nicely in tissue paper and a ribbon-bound bag, and gift the quilt with no worries of fray.

gorgeous spring baby shower gifts — Spring baby shower gift table decor–so alive!

My sister-in-law LOVED it, so mission accomplished! Even with a few basting pins still in Hazel and the heart, which will be quilted as soon as the color matched Aurifil thread arrives, it was fun to get to give this gift. Just think: hidden behind this quilt are two big baby bumps–cousins destined to be rolling around on top of this fun quilt (Stephanie is due a couple weeks after I am).

I will share more detail photos of the quilting and finishing in a later finish post once the quilt is completely finished (this will help keep the fire lit under my bum so that I actually finish it before baby time!) But for now, here’s a closer look at the speech bubble heart I’m calling “Hello, Love”. I’m planning on writing up a pattern for this block, since it’s such a perfect block to add to any of Elizabeth Hartman’s giant creatures, and I could definitely go for a speech bubble heart pillow!

I’m linking up with the ALYoF April Finishes Party, as well as Monday Makers and Design Wall.

Finally, here is the reveal of my secret garden quilt: Attalie’s June Garden.

garden quilt finish butterfly flower — Attalie’s June Garden: A finished quilt, without all of the butterfly pins.

Last weekend, I was doing some hurried slow stitching, trying to get the binding sewn down on this quilt before the baby shower at which it was to be gifted. I finished sewing the binding just in time for the shower to be postponed due to the swiftly blowing and accumulating snow, and shortly thereafter we lost power. For over three days. But I finished the quilt!

free motion quilted words garden quilt — “Attalie’s June Garden”, free motion quilted into the bottom of the quilt’s border.

This quilt has a definite story behind it. First, to decipher the name for you. Attalie is the in utero baby for whom I made the quilt. June is the name of my husband’s Grammy, the quilter of the family, and the collector of all of the butterfly pins that live in this garden quilt. Grammy June died less than a year ago. When she died, all of the family had the emotional task of going through her things before the estate sale. In looking at her jewelry, I discovered a large number of butterfly pins. “I didn’t know Grammy collected butterflies!” I said. As it turns out, neither did any one else in the family. Either way, I immediately envisioned them living forever in a quilted garden wall-hanging, so I asked if I could take them. Everyone, of course, said yes.

paper pieced star butterfly quilt garden — One of Grammy June’s butterfly pins, flitting peacefully by the glittering sunburst I paper pieced especially for this quilt.

Flash forward a few months. Our cousin Molly, who was the one who took care of Grammy June during her last days, and who now lives in Grammy June’s old house, announced that she was pregnant. Flash forward a few more months: Molly shared that they were having a girl, naming her Attalie, and that the nursery theme would be “Garden”. The butterfly garden quilt was asking to be created, finally. With a little over two weeks before the baby shower, I got started. I designed, pieced, and free motion quilted the entire quilt, which finishes at 27″ x 20″, and stitched on the binding just in the nick of time. The quilt is mostly comprised of fussy-cut 1- and 2-inch squares (1 1/2″ and 2 1/2″ before sewn together).The process was a lot tougher than I imagined, and there were definitely some face-palm, seam ripping moments (which I will go into in a later post), but I am very happy with how this quilt turned out. Here are some detail photos:

flower free motion quilting — I used a wild, make it up as I go free motion quilting pattern, sometimes mirroring the flowers, and sometimes adding features. I love how this particular FMQ turned out!

butterfly garden quilt — The finished quilt, complete with flitting butterflies. The butterfly pins were all collected by Grammy June, who would have been (and always will be, in heaven) baby Attalie’s Great Grammy.

Here are some detail shots of the beautiful butterfly pins on different parts of the quilt. I tried to balance the overall color flow by putting the blue/green pins on the pink flowers, and the other pins in and around the blue and purple flowers. I think the butterflies look quite happy on this quilt!

butterfly pins on garden quilt — I think this little copper butterfly is my favorite.

flower garden quilt — Even after a blizzard, there were still a few flowers in the garden. This one came out to play with Attalie’s June Garden quilt.

quilt corner label — My first corner label. I will fill in Attalie’s middle & last names once her middle name has been chosen!

Finished quilt stats:

Name: Attalie’s June Garden
Size: 27″ x 20″
Fabric: Assorted flowers from RJR Fabrics, Andover, and Studio E
Quilting: Free motion quilted with mostly Aurifil and some other hand-me-down threads
Finished: November 2014
Related blog posts: A Garden {Quilt} Full of Florals

I’m linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday.