On Wednesday after a couple of days of paper piecing (which I’ll show you soon) I had a look at the Patchwork Please sew along project for the week and discovered that it was the Books for Baby quilt. A few weeks ago I had decided that I would like to make this quilt in fabrics suitable for a boy and had pulled a pile of possible book covers.
It was the last day of school for the girls so my last day of quiet sewing with a small boy for company. It didn’t take long for me to sew up this:
I loved the fact that I could fussy cut the text print AND that it complemented the book cover. My only regret is that I didn’t use the orange print on the spine as well as the corners but I wasn’t about to unpick!
Spurred on by how quickly this came together I spent the evening cutting fabrics for 11 more blocks. I’m not quite sure how but by the end of Thursday I had made all the blocks and pulled fabrics for the borders and sashing! I promise I didn’t neglect my children! We did a food shop, a puzzle:
and they didn’t go hungry.
While I was selecting fabrics I came across a text print that said something about ‘falling in love with the robot maker’ so that had to go with the robot book (Madrona Road maybe?):
I don’t think it’s that wonky in real life!
A book about bicycles, tricycles, tandems and trailers:
And watch out this may have a snappy creature inside, don’t be fooled by the cute sea creatures on the cover!
On Friday morning while still in my pj’s I sewed the borders around each block, then went off to my mum’s to fruit pick, coming home with most of this lot:
Once the children were tucked up in bed last night I continued sewing and managed to put the whole quilt top together:
For a seemingly complex quilt I am amazed at how quickly it came together, the paper piecing was straight forward and most of the fabrics for the spine and book corners were from my scraps box. Now I just need to decide how to quilt it – any suggestions? I’m thinking that for the first time ever I might hand quilt it as it seems a bit too special just to machine…
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Love the quilt top! I think hand quilting would be fabulous, or some really simple machine quilting. Definitely not one where you want the quilting to take centre stage.
How sweet! I think it looks great, but I wouldn’t have enough text fabrics in my stash to make it!
Love it! What a fab quilt! I love that you were able to match some of the text sayings to the fussy cutting! Perfect!
That quilt top is just perfect! Another quilt to add to my wish list…
I love the idea of hand quilting it.
Love the books, so fun. Don’t you love it when you get to use some scraps? I can’t wait to see how you finish it.
Sheesh, aren’t the kids self-sufficient on the entertainment front yet? 😉 And yes, the robot one is Madrona Road, love the ‘text matching’
Oh wow I love your book blocks and how you got the text to match covers in a lot of cases. Excellent!
Great quilt top! Can’t wait to see it finished.
This is downright darling, and you did an awesome job with the covers and ‘coordinating’ text – really nice!
The books look fab and it’s great how the text matches the book.
Your book blocks are adorable! You must have quite the amazing stash of fabric! Love the robot!
That is ADORABLE. And I love how you manage to get some Summersville crosshatch into most things. It’s like a little signature.
Utterly perfect!
Fabulous quilt! So inspiring!
How the flip did you find time?!! I did barely anything (except some bee blocks) I say hand quilt!
Such quick work – amazing 🙂
I LOVE this quilt, Mary! It’s completely perfect for a boy, perfect and clever fabric choices – can’t wait to see it finished (can be of no sensible assistance re. quilting)!
This is such a brilliant idea, and it looks beautiful. Are all the blocks based on real books?
Kollabora.com, the crafting community I’m part of, just added a quilting section, but there isn’t much in it yet. I’d love to see something like this over there! You should upload it if you get a chance.