Low Volume Postage Stamps

It started out with a baby quilt.  I'd seen a lot of pictures of low volume quilts and had lots of odd fabrics in my stash that I thought would work. A lot of it it is "what was I thinking?" fabric from my early days of quilting, but it was absolutely perfect for this project.

Alex saw the two low volume baby quilts and wanted one for herself, so I cut more 2 1/2" squares (skipping the prints with diaper pins and baby bottles but leaving in the sock monkeys) and spent a couple of months adding to the  pile whenever I found a likely print. Now, as soon as I can find that gorgeous backing fabric I bought for it, she'll have her quilt!

This post is linked to Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times.

the fear of leaving one out...

Last January, I got intrigued by the idea of low volume quilts. I had plenty of pastel baby prints that I didn't know what to do with, so I  cut a bunch of squares and made Annabelle and Amanda.

Teenage Daughter saw them and decided that she wanted a big version for herself -- without the baby bottles or diaper pins. I pulled a bunch of fabrics and bought some more, and cut a bunch of squares and then got distracted by other things. What hangs me up with this kind of project is the fear that I'll leave something out. As soon as I get the top together, I just know I'll stumble across the absolute perfect fabric or fabrics, waiting there in my stash. 

I've got my nine-hundred squares cut, so I think it's time to just say enough is enough and start piecing. I could get the top together in a few days...or I could make a few blocks and then stop because I'm sure that perfect neutral fabric is still lurking in my stash...

When did this one become a UFO?

Teenage Daughter wants a big-girl version of this quilt --

That just means making it bigger and leaving out the fabric with baby bottles and diaper pins. Easy, right? I pulled out the fabric leftover from the little quilt and cut some more squares, pulled more  fabric from my stash, got it all ironed....

And then I got sidetracked. That freshly ironed fabric got moved... and that's how UFOs tend to happen around here.

 

I'm linking up to Judy at Patchwork Times and her Wednesday UFO Report.

Meet Amanda

Blame it on Nancy Drew!  I've been seriously distracted by the Nancy Drew blog hop -- and busy making my project and writing my post. (If you're as crazy for vintage Nancy Drew books as I am, make sure you check out the giveaway!) That's why this top sat for a week before I got it quilted and bound.

 

Then I realized that making excuses for not having a finished baby quilt for a third week in a row when I'm trying to motivate others to make baby quilts just wasn't right. So here she is --



 

This is Amanda, and she's made with mostly the same fabrics I used for Annabelle. There are a whole lot of "what was I thinking?" fabrics here, prints that I bought brand new and later decided didn't work with my style of quilting. Thank goodness they make such cute low volume baby quilts!

 

There will be lots more of these.

This post is linked to to Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Link a Finish Friday, and Freedom Fridays.

Meet Annabelle

I'm seriously loving this delicate little quilt. She was named by Teenage Daughter, who wants me to make her the big girl version. (That one is going to be considerably larger and won't include the prints with diaper pins.)

I started pulling together fabrics for this one after seen so many gorgeous low volume quilts out there. Somewhere in my sewing room is a bag of fabrics that I'd been pulling together for backgrounds, but  I pulled together these prints so quickly that  I didn't even bother hunting for those. I'll find them when I'm ready to start the big quilt.

This is the same quilting design as I used for Steve. I like it better worked over 4" squares than the 6" squares in the other quilt. It's closer to the dense quilting that I love so much.



This post is linked to to Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Link a Finish Friday, and Freedom Fridays.