Lilac Roses baby quilt

Another baby is joining my family!  My previous nieces are my sister’s children, but this niece-to-come is my brother’s.  For my other nieces, I’ve been making “big girl quilts” when they are a bit older, but in this case, as I haven’t met my sister-in-law yet, I decide to make a baby quilt to welcome the mother into the family as well as to wrap and cherish the baby once she’s born.  My brother told me his wife’s favorite color is lilac. 

First Attempt - a lavender graveyard.

My first attempt at a lilac quilt is a dud.  I start by combing through my stash for purples... with few to be found.  Turns out, I'm not drawn to purple at all!  So I have a few fat quarters in a Tilda collection that leans more lavender than lilac, and a few French General style florals, restrained and elegant.  These fabrics leave me totally uninspired, but I figure “baby quilt – why not try something spontaneous” and so I slash and sew a bunch of plus signs that – to me– look like the tops of wrapped gifts. 

Seeing the finished top on the wall, though, I hate it!  It seems dull and mature, not a joyous welcome for a baby.  ​And then two different people look at it and said “tombstones?”, because I guess it does look like rows of crosses.  Oh, dear. 

​So I donate the top to the Northwest Quilters guild to be finished for charity.  Maybe it’ll make a nice lap quilt for an older woman with a taste for elegant florals.  But not a baby!  ​

Second Attempt - Improv roses!

Photo courtesy of Shauna Sonoda

​On October 26, 2024, I attend an improv roses workshop through Northwest Quilters' guild.  It is taught by Jill Huntington, who uses string piecing techniques and careful color choices to make roses.  She uses batiks, and has made several full size quilts that seem to glow like jewels!  I use my own scraps: batiks, solids, and prints.  I make two roses at the workshop, and then go home and made a few more, thinking these will be a sweet motif for the baby quilt.  String piecing is easy and meditative, so I make a rose or half a rose every day, until I have enough to put together a symmetrical layout. 

Then, on November 2nd, at Quiltopia in Salem OR, I buy some lilac fabrics on purpose, just for this project.  I use the lilacs to frame to roses.  Nothing fancy, except that I cut one set of sashing on grain and the other on crossgrain, because the print has a nap and I want all the flowers to be “growing” the same direction!  It takes a little thought, but I think the end result is more harmonious than if I’d just cut rectangles without paying attention to the direction of the print.  Soon, I have quite a pretty top put together.  

For batting, I have to cheap out a bit.  Being short on funds at the moment, I use an Ikea fleece blanket (Vitmossa throw, $1.99).  I know it won’t shrink and crinkle the way a cotton batt does, but it'll have to do.  I make an envelope-style sandwich, turn, and quilt it after the edges are enclosed.  Actually, the fleece blanket is a dream to quilt with!  It’s made of a fuzzy knit, not a felted woven, and the knit allows the needle to glide through its innumerable holes with ease.  I use chalk lines to plan diagonal quilting over the corners, converging on the center, then sew over the chalk lines with wavy lines.  I don't fret about minimal quilting distance, because the knitted batt didn’t require quilting to hold it together.  To my delight, when I wash and dry it, the cotton still shrinks and crinkles a little, giving the quilt a crinkly charm, and the polyester batt is lightweight enough that the blanket dries super fast.  It’s so satisfactory that I’m tempted to buy their off-white throw (Thorgun throw, $3.99) as a batt for a lighter-colored top I want to finish.  

Finished, washed, and ready to ship!