A Churn Dashing Baby Quilt!

To kick off, I'm going to share with you my latest finished creation.

In June I splurged and purchased both books from the amazingly talented Camille Roskelly (who happens to also be the designer of the beautiful quilt pattern 'Swoon', of which I am anxiously awaiting in the mail!).

Her books 'Simplify' and 'Simply Retro' contain some stunningly amazing quilt, and also look fantastic in my book shelf! What more could one ask for??

She takes your everyday classic, time-honored blocks then loves and nurtures them till they grow into a happy marriage between modern and vintage. Her quilts have all the fresh-facedness (is that a word?) of a modern quilt, but the comfort and familiarity of a traditional. Genius!

So anyway, when I received her books I just knew I HAD to make them all!! So I called my Sister-in-law, who was 8 months pregnant to tell her I was going to make her a quilt!

Now is a good time to mention that when Sarah Jane's first two fabric lines came out, 'Children at play' and 'Out to sea', I was completely obsessed! Who wouldn't be, I mean fabric covered in little girls with their dolls, rockets, ships, and the most adorable boarder print you will EVER see!

Just look at that! Scrumptious!
So since I have a rather embarrassingly large pile of Sarah Jane fabric in my cupboard, I decided to use some of it to make this pattern from 'Simply Retro', which is a take on the traditional churn dash block.

This Quilt calls for charm packs (5'' square blocks), and once I cut those from my cherished stash, the quilt came together rather quickly. It was surprisingly easy, although I did make a mistake when reading the pattern and accidentally cut double of what I needed. Eek! After a brief panic that I'd cut my Sarah Jane fabric unnecessarily, I remembered my sister is having a baby boy in October. Cue one big sigh of relief *phew*. I decided then and there to make her the same quilt :)

So here it is. Ta-Daa!
I decided to add a 1 1/2'' white boarder, followed by a 1'' red boarder then finished with another 1 1/2'' white boarder. I did this purely to make the quilt bigger as the original pattern was too small for my liking (I also think it improves the look of the quilt too!). I ideally like my baby quilts to be around the 1 yd x 1.5 yd mark. This is so it can be used for longer, as children tend to have a habit of getting bigger, and I like my creations to be used for as long as possible.
I know what you must be thinking! But this quilt is square! Yes I know, but it ended up around 45 inches square, which satisfied my frugal-ness better than the 36'' square quilt in the book. 

I quilted this by echoing the inside small white square, and stitch in the ditch around the 9 larger blocks. Not very exciting I know, but time was of the essence, as my SIL was headed back to sunny Townsville in Queensland the next day and I had to have it done! (Did I mention Mr Handsome grew up in Townsville?)

 For the back I used a nice spot fabric from Riley Blake. Its not the best photo, but if you squint a little, you can almost see the quilting :)

Needless to say, my newest nephew (I have 3 now!) was so adorable. In fact it made me clucky all over again. Luckily for me the sane part of my brain was still working and reminded me that if I get pregnant now, I will have 4 children at home, as Little misses E & I don't start school till 2015! As much as I would love another, I value my sanity too much.

Signing off!

Jessica