Oh, Baby x Two!

.....looks like another quilt for wee little Braydan! My vision for Alexander Henry's 2-D Zoo might not make its appearance until after said kiddo arrives. One of Braydan's grandmas-to-be lives out of state and asked if I would consider making a toddle bed-size quilt for him. With two weeks to go before the shower. I'm debating. The stipulations are a little more specific than I would like, but I'm hoping there's room to wiggle. The request was to combine John Deere and Winnie the Pooh into the quilt top, a solid blue back and blue binding, include Braydan's name as applique, and (the part that has me on the fence) it must be tied. Ugh. I'm not wild about the tying part....  {grin} 

I toyed with a few ideas of my own, but given the timeline, finally opted to adjust a pattern in existence. I played around with a McCall's Quick Quilts pattern called "Baby on the Go" (it's free, if you're interested), increasing its size and adding a band for applique. What do you know...it might just work! I shopped around for fabric and, not counting batting and thread which I have an abundance of at home, came in around $40. I may have strayed ever so slightly from some of the requests, but I think my interpretation retains the spirit of the quilt.  {wink}

My idea for finishing the quilt is to do an all-over motif and then add decorative ties to the center of each focus fabric. The quilt should stand up better to machine washing (and for a toddler, I image it'll visit the laundry room fairly regularly!) and still have the charm of ties that grandma wants.

I chose a Winnie the Pooh toile plus two coordinating prints --- the honey bees and the Pooh/Piglet lattice in blue. I plan to fussy cut the toile because there are so many cute scenes, and it'll add to the variety of the prints overall. The old school John Deere tractors on the torn newsprint coordinate surprisingly well both in color and scale. The green JD logos on the striped background are ok (the background is a little lighter than  I would like) ---- I am really not feeling the more modern looking JD logoed farbic. I'm going to cut up some anyhow and see how it looks together with the Kona Bone. Which I love.  {grin}  The plaid stripe bordering the applique is the fabric I chose for the back. No, it's not solid blue, but I figured it'll be more forgiving of my quilting and the addition of ties after the fact. Also, I just like it! It's a great match to the blues and yellows on the front ---- the Pooh/Piglet lattice is doubling at the binding as well as the base for the applique letters.

I have high hopes that it'll all come together in the end! Tonight is fabric cutting. Tomorrow I'm going to tackle the snowball corners and applique band. And hopefully on Saturday I'll piece the top, quilt, tie, and bind. We shall see! I'm kind of in a hurry on this one because I sort of would like to do the 2-D zoo as my gift, and I have a shower the same day for my brother and his wife. It's their first and I have turtles and ric-rac on the mind!  {grin}