A lot of people talk about Facebook and other social media in very derogatory terms. Like anything else in life – it’s what you make of it. I have been fortunate to have found a small group of likeminded crafty women online, we have our own closed group. In my travels I’ve been able to meet four of them IRL.
One of them is Sarah in Austin, who is expecting her third child very soon, a little girl. Together we planned to knit her a baby blanket as well as each of us making a unique gift using our individual talents. So I’ve been quilting.
On Pinterest, I saw a baby quilt with a large offset Dresden plate. Lately I’ve been enjoying the center medallion quilt, as well as the scrappy quilt. Most of these fabrics are stash, a few are new.
I used many techniques, one of which is needle turn appliqué – I’d like to make an Hawaiian style quilt one of these days. Perfect project to practice on.
Especially on these hearts.
Upon seeing the completed quilt a friend asked for the pattern, there isn’t one, it was design as I went along, also, it was use up what I had. So I used up my pink and purple solids instead of buying one larger solid pink. 
Originally I had hoped to repeat the corner pattern around the whole border. A free pattern, Chic Stars, using the Quick Curve Ruler. They look more like hearts to me, which just echoes the appliqué hearts in the center. I came up with the bands of print fabric as a solution. Necessity is the mother of invention – and a very good one indeed.
Next challenge – how do I quilt this? Since I have Hawaiian quilts on the brain, why not echo the dresden plate? Starting in the center with FMQ I quickly switched to the walking foot and filled the entire center panel.
Its a little hard to see the quilting, I used a ruler for straight lines in the color bars, reinforced the heart idea with FMQ.
Photography is a wonderful thing. I had finished and bound the quilt and was taking picture. Well I thought I had finished, turns out I forgot a corner of the echo stitch. No problem, back to the machine we go. This has happened to me before, I forget to quilt a small area, or in one case, I forgot to machine applique one piece. Luckily that was on a wall hanging.
Love the final quilt. The scrappy continued in the binding – using up every last bit of the solid fabric. You can clearly see how effective the spiral quilting is here as well.
More scrappy in the back. Here I’m using up the print fabrics as well as some leftover blocks from another quilt, I even included a fabric that doesn’t show up in the front, thats what you do when you run out. 
Another tip from either Pinterest or Instagram – sew the label in with the binding. 
Since this unborn baby already has a name picked out, I hand embroidered a label as well.
It has arrived safely! I think it’s safe to say that this will be a well loved quilt.