A Baby Quilt for the New GranddaughterStitches

I mentioned in a post last August that there is going to be a new GrandBabyStitches.  Now we know that it is a GranddaughterStitches!  So, in addition to the receiving blankets and some other baby accessories, I've been working on a quilt, too.

Daughter-in-lawStitches told me about a website/app called The Bump.  It's a very helpful app if you happen to be expecting a baby.  Each week they send out an email that tells you how big your baby is, how much it weighs, etc.  It tells you other information about the baby, too, like which parts of the baby are growing right now, etc.  And there are lots of links to articles about things like decorating a nursery, buying a baby stroller, what to do for morning sickness, etc.

The really cute thing is that each week when they tell you the size of the baby, they compare it to a fruit or vegetable.  At first it was a tiny apple seed, then grew to a grape, then a lemon.  And later to a head of lettuce, a pumpkin, and a watermelon!  So I went on a hunt to find as many of those foods depicted in fabric as I could.  Here they are all laid out.

I changed the photo into black and white so I could get a better idea of which fabrics read as darks and which read as lights.

I found a pattern in a magazine that I liked.  Then I adapted it to make a smaller quilt.  The magazine included a paper template for the curved piece.  So I just made it a little smaller than that, using the width measurement of the template to tell me how wide my baby quilt would be.

Here is where I was auditioning fabrics for the binding.  I ended up going with a semi-solid, known as "Grunge" in green.  

How to quilt this was my next "decision/opportunity."  I haven't been feeling very good about my free-motion quilting quality lately, but. . .

I sewed 1/4" away from all the curved horizontal seams and the straight vertical seams.  Then I tried free motion quilting some fruit and vegetable shapes, and was ok with the results.

I decided to mix up the quilting, so you can see in the above photo that I quilted strawberries on the pumpkins.    And below I quilted pumpkins on the bananas.

I had found this great "multi-fruit/veg" print at a quilt shop in Ashland, Oregon which I used for the back of the quilt.

I'm quite happy with how it turned out.  This is one quilt that is supposed to look wavy on the bottom!