Woodland Strings Baby Boy Quilt

Woodland animals have been a trend for some time in nursery decor.  Amazingly, this is the first baby quilt I have made with that theme.  My husband says it doesn’t look like woodland creatures and I’m okay with that.  It’s there, but you have to look closely.

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Inspiration

Scrap packs from Crimson Tate were purchased months ago.  When my client suggested outdoors and animal for a boy, these fabrics immediately came to mind.  I had envisioned a string quilt when I first picked up the bundles and the idea had not faded.

Posing on Point by MyTeaandBrie was quilt design inspiration.  While I didn’t use her tutorial, I use more of the general layout.  Note:  the mailing list request is for My Tea & Brie, not my site.

Beyond Patchwork: String Piecing Tutorial

 

Piecing

I pressed and starched all my fabrics before cutting.

For my blocks I cut the following string sizes:

Center white strip:  2 inches

Grey strip:  3 inches

Other fabrics 1.5 or 2 inches in width

Ready to chain piece this batch

Chain piecing the blocks made it pretty easy to bust the top out.  I worked in 30 minute chunks then took a break.  Tip:  keep the iron nearby to make chain piecing more efficient.

Layout

In laying out the quilt top I was not overly picky about where things went.  An effort was made to keep too many colors from the same square.  Overall, it turned out great.

After completing the top, it was time to rip off all the little papers from the back.  My mother-in-law was in town for Fall Break.  I asked if she wanted to help and she joined in.  It was great to have someone help out, this part was going to take forever and I was on a deadline.  If I could get it to the client by X date, they could hand deliver.  Well, I had to get this sucker quilted and bound quickly to make that happen.

Quilting, Backing, and Binding

A couple of backing options were auditioned but this black and white dot ultimately won.  Doesn’t it play well with the front?

In the effort to meet my looming deadline, free motion quilting with loops won for quilting.  Seriously the quilting took an hour.  My mother-in-law and husband were watching something while I knocked this out.  They were surprised when I entered the room with the quilted piece.  I was pretty proud of myself.

However, while I was quilting, I found an error in my quilt.  Can you spot it?  If you’re a quilter probably, but most didn’t notice it.  There was a frantic post to my guild’s page and texts to a couple of friends.  The consensus was it’s a design element.  Ha!  If I wasn’t almost done with the quilting when my eye caught it I would have fixed it.  Sometimes you have to let the little things go and accept them.  It wasn’t the way I envisioned the quilt turning out, but it works.

Deep in my stash was the gray houndstooth flannel.  The piece I had was just enough to bind the quilt.  Everything to make this quilt was scraps or stash fabric which is a positive in my book.  Makes working against that looming deadline even better.

After thoughts

Pretty sure I want to remake this quilt in a bigger size to keep.  The colors are lovely, I am digging the jade.  Despite a tight deadline, the quilt made it to CA in time to be hand delivered.  The precipitant loved it.  Making a baby quilt that doesn’t scream baby is always nice too.

If you like the quilt, save it Pinterest for future reference.  I have it under Scrap Busting Projects.

 


Link Ups

Crazy Mom Quilts

Needle and Thread Thursday