A friend of ours and his girlfriend down in Washington D.C. recently welcomed an adorable little girl, Penelope, to their family. I wanted to make a quilt as a gift, and knew I'd give Elizabeth Hartman's Charm Square baby quilt pattern another spin. It comes together really quickly, and while I didn't use pre-cuts this time, because you can use a charm pack as well as cut from stashed yardage, it just gives you so many options.
I've got quite a bit of Denyse Schmidt fabrics now, from having a couple of her Free Spirit collections and some of the prints from the DS Quilts collections she's done for Joann's, and decided to gather a selection. The pattern uses 38 charms, so I picked a different fabric for each one, rather than double up. I did try and make the selection a little neutral, color wise. I didn't want it to be very obviously girly. You never know... there may be a sibling down the line, and said sibling could be a boy. Also not knowing their personal decorating style, versatility and neutrality seemed a good way to go.
For the sashing I went with Kona in Meringue. The other charm square baby quilt I made also used Meringue as the sashing color. While I like using white as the main solid in quilts, sometimes you just want something a little more colorful. The Meringue is a lovely soft color that doesn't drown out anything you pair it with. For the backing I picked one of the new Kona shades: Sprout. Like the Meringue it's a nice soft color, while also still being very fresh.
The quilting is just simple wavy lines... some movement, nothing overpowering. For the binding I was going to use Kona Sprout for the entire thing, and then I noticed some of the binding scraps I had sitting on my work table from 2 quilts I'd finished just previously. I noticed that the colors worked really well with the quilt, and decided to make the binding scrappy. So the binding is partially Sprout, and partially two Kate Spain prints, from Fandango and Central Park.
I will readily admit that I am frequently envious of people who can manage to just grab a stack of prints and have it work. It's one of the areas where I don't always feel as confident, and I did occasionally have small doubts. I pressed on regardless, knowing also that I will always be my worst critic, and I'm likely just being way too picky and self-conscious. Even while cutting and sewing I still felt insecure, and it wasn't until the end that I really felt very excited and happy with it. I'm glad I silenced my inner critic.
The pictures may seem a little more blue-grayish than is accurate. It was actually raining outside when I quickly snapped the photos, before getting the quilt off to the post office. It makes the Meringue look a little grayer, when it really is a lovely creamy pale yellow.
