A Girl and Her Japanese Quilt

Last week we went in for an ultrasound and found out that we are having a healthy baby girl!  This will be girl #5 for us.  My husband is hopelessly outnumbered with all his little girls, wife, 6 hens and a female cat.  Poor guy.  ;)

But now that we know that it is a girl, I can officially start sewing baby things!  The only problem is that I am not in the mood for sewing with a bunch of pink.  I want to use all the special fabric that I have been saving.  Great idea, huh?  Only it happens to be gender neutral/boyish.  Oh well, people never seem to pick up on gender clues anyway.  I don't know how many times I have taken my baby girls out all dressed in pink and someone congratulates me on my baby boy.  ?!?

Anyway...here is baby quilt #1.  I made it with about half of the 5 inch Japanese Charms I received in two swaps last year.  It is made out of 4 super-sized granny square blocks.  It was relatively fast and easy to piece.  The slowest/funnest part was laying out the squares and rearranging them until I was pleased with the layout.

 The blue block.  I love the frogs, fruit and owls!

 The red block.  I tried a lot of different fabrics and placements for this block.  I ended up cutting some of my own Japanese fabric to have enough red to make the outer round.  I think the fabric placement/contrast worked out well.

 The green block.  This block layout came together fast, except for the pesky center square.  I'm still not sold on it, but it was the best looking option.  I am loving the Echino cars and blue Scandinavian inspired prints.

 The pink block.  At first pink was going to be the outer round in this block, but it just didn't play well with the other block colors.  I like the final layout and the pop of brown in the center.  The pig and reindeer fabric are too cute for words.

And there it is!  Baby Girl #5's Japanese Squares blanket!

I'm linking up with Amy's One Thing, One Week Challenge.  My goal was to finish this quilt top and I did it!

Waiting for Inspiration and Design Walls

Last year I participated in two rounds of a Japanese Fabric Charm swap hosted by AnneMarie of Gen X Quilters.  Ever since then I have been on the look out for the perfect project to use them in.  I didn't want to cut down the 5 inch squares, but I didn't want to make a simple eye spy quilt with them either (I have another stack of fabric set aside for that!).

Then last week I saw a jumbo granny square block made out of 4 inch squares and made into a pillow.   I feel awful that I can't find the link to it now - but it totally inspired me.  Edited:  It was Elena's pillow for the Modern Mini Challenge I saw!  Thanks!!!

I would use my Japanese Charms to make a jumbo granny square quilt!   I started playing around...this was my first layout.  I ran out of space on the bottom of my design wall but just use your imagination.  Not great. I kept on playing....

...and this is how my wall looks this morning.  Much better, but I might try switching the position of the red and green granny blocks.  What do you think?

I also have a stack of My Folklore dala horse fabric by Leicen that I have been trying to find the perfect quilt for.  I want something somewhat simple with largish blocks that would show off the fabric.   Perhaps something that would be a good Christmas quilt.  This quilt by baileygirl might be the ticket.  I might just use the red and black fabric for the quilt so it has more of a Christmas-y feel.  Or I might keep looking for awhile...goodness knows that I have enough other projects going on right now without cutting into more fabric.  ;)

Do you have a stack of fabric that you are trying to find the perfect pattern for?  How do you decide what to make?

 Before I started laying out granny squares, this was up on my design wall.  It was suppose to be my entry in the Tangerine Tango Challenge, but then I got sick and it got put on the back burner.  I used the same process for these squiggles as I did for the wonky fan block.  The wedges are 5 inches tall and I will machine applique the squiggles onto white fabric.  Then I want to do some fun free motion quilting that echos the squiggles.

I usually lay out my bee blocks on the design wall as I get them, but as it was otherwise occupied, here are the blocks that I received for the first quarter of the 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee.  Thanks ladies!  I signed up to be in a paper piecing group for next quarter.  It should be fun!