Quarantine Quilts - Part I
2020 started off pretty slow for me. I lived in Lafayette, Indiana with my husband Stefan and I was working at a lab at Purdue, awaiting the arrival of our baby who was due in March. In my spare time I watched (and re-watched) The Office, ate an insane amount of apples (pregnancy cravings), and occasionally quilted. February hit, Kobe was tragically gone, and we started seeing reports of an emerging novel coronavirus. I, like so many others, could never have conceived that this new virus would become a global pandemic.
Mid-February we had a giant surprise—the early birth of our baby! We had just begun making final preparations (extra emphasis on just begun lol) and were hilariously unprepared. We didn’t have any diapers, bottles, wipes, or a bassinet at home. Despite the shock, we were well taken care of by my cousin, kind friends from church, and our mothers. Once things settled down a little I jumped back into quilting and perhaps went a bit nuts. I made 17 quilts from April to December, but I’ll just chronicle 14 of them here. Of the other three, one was stolen (another story for another time), and I didn’t take photos of the other two.
#1 - Penny’s Quilt
My first finish of the 2020 quarantine was a square quilt for my new niece Penny. I was so excited to make this quilt for her because she and my baby boy were going to be just 2.5 months apart. They ended up only being 6 weeks apart—my water actually broke while I was sewing this quilt together! I had to take a brief hiatus (and move the sewing machine out of baby’s room into the kitchen haha) before I finally completed it two months later.
I designed a simple, log cabin-esque pattern that only required two fabrics. I was 7 months pregnant at the time and was not in the best mood to deal with anything that would require sitting hunched over the sewing machine for too long. I dug through my fabric stash (just a big plastic bucket full of fabric) and pulled out some options for Stefan to choose from since Penny was his brother’s baby. He picked out some cute elephants and found an orange fabric to match. The best part was that this combo paired PERFECTLY with the softest minky I’d been hoarding for years! It was meant to be.
Can you believe that this is the only photo I took of this quilt? I snapped it quickly on my way out the door (peep the case of water bottles on the couch) to find a fabric for the binding. After sitting on the couch for a few months post-binding, it made its way to Penny that summer.
#2 - Offset Star Quilt
The next quilt I made was probably my favorite finish of the whole year! I used Then Came June’s free Offset Star Quilt Pattern and a minky backing for the cuddliest quilt for my baby boy. The rocket fabric was a buy from Joanns years ago, and the solids are randoms from my stash bucket that just happened to match. It was the first time in years that I’d made a quilt from a pattern and it was so fun and easy! I love the traditional look of the sawtooth star, and it was fun to mix it up a little by making the center square a different fabric from the star points.
This was my first time making flying geese blocks, so my corners don’t perfectly line up, but I absolutely love the way it turned out! The top came together quickly, but quilting it together was anything but quick! It took me about 6-7 hours to sew all those lines on my domestic. I typically do simple lines on my baby quilts, but with this one I wanted to incorporate angles and vary the thickness of the rows. It turned out so much better than I imagined, even though it took some time.
#3 - Lily Quilt
Whole cloth quilts are some of my favorite quilts to make for three reasons:
no quilt math required, no cutting, and hardly any planning involved
they come together sew quickly (see what I did there? lol)
the whole cloth quilts I make always go to babies, and what better feeling is there than giving a baby a cuddly quilt?!
I hadn’t done a name on a quilt before, so I opted to use a roll of heat n bond adhesive to secure the “Lily” letters before sewing. I used just enough to secure the edges, and was sad to discover that the adhesive showed through the solid blue fabric. I decided to quilt the letters with a small swirly design so that the darker spots from the adhesive squares wouldn’t be as visible. Although spurred out of necessity, the quilted letters ended up looking so cute! Definitely a lemonade from lemons type of experience.
#4 - Aqua Gingham Quilt
This was the first gingham quilt I made, and I learned so much! I really enjoy designing quilt tops as I go—it is definitely not the most efficient way to quilt, but its what I like to do. I quickly realized that I’d made a mistake in cutting out 140 individual squares. It would have been much faster to piece the top in strips and then cut, rather than sew all the squares together.
Do you want to make a gingham quilt? I have a free Gingham Quilt pattern for anyone (and everyone!!) that signs up for my newsletter! Sign up at the bottom of this page.
#5 - Star Wars Gryffin
When Stefan and I were contemplating leaving Washington for Indiana, I reached out to my cousin who I knew lived somewhere in the Midwest. Guess what?!? She lived in the EXACT city we were thinking of moving to!! It was the craziest coincidence but has been the biggest blessing.
This Star Wars quilt was for my cousin’s oldest boy. I came across this print at Joann’s one day and I just had to make it for him. I used excess flannel from the backing to make the letters for his name. I decided not to use Heat n Bond again because of the tiny fiasco that happened with the “Lily” letters from the last time I did this. Also, I wanted the quilt to be as cuddly as possible, so the omission of adhesive seemed to favor that desire. I simply pinned the letters to the cotton star wars fabric and outlined the letters with a straight stitch. Then, when quilting it all together, I ran a zig-zag stitch around the letters for extra durability. Ta da!
And that’s a wrap…for now! Find part II here and part III here!
