Tag Archives: Baby Quilt

Tone It Down Quilt: Choosing Fabrics

Tone It Down by Lissa Alexander

It’s December 23 and I’m counting down the days to 2014! Think I can get in a couple more quilts before the New Year? I should probably focus on ones that are already in progress but coming off the organizational high of my destash sale, I am in the mood for playing with fabric and starting something new. There’s a beautiful quilt by Lissa Alexander called Tone It Down in the February 2014 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. It uses traditional piecing and a “modern” low-volume background. Read about Lissa’s inspiration for the quilt {here}. APQ is hosting a quilt-along for this project and I decided it would be a good sewing project for the holidays (chain piecing friendly = lots of audiobooks + mugs of cocoa).

I pulled fabrics for the quilt yesterday, using this retro-inspired Alice Apple felt applique art as my color palette:

VMQ-palette-crushing-on-kitschHere are my fabric picks:

Tone It Down | Fabric Stacks

A variety of pinks for the main blocks across the quilt (pink, orange, and red in the original)

Tone It Down | Fabric Stacks

Mustard + aqua + orange + grass green for the secondary pattern of circles

Tone It Down | Fabric Stacks

And a big variety of low volume prints for the background.

VMQ-palette-templateThis quilt pattern is very scrap friendly so I’ve pulled lots of things from my scrap basket to mix in with fat quarters and yardage from my stash. I want to make the mustard color more prominent so I’ll probably find a print or solid in that range to use for binding.

Are you going to quilt along with us? You can find the magazine at most craft stores or purchase a digital copy {here}.

Micah’s Quilt

Micah's Quilt

This quilt is for a sweet baby girl named Micah (not so much a baby anymore! She’s one year old now). Her parents are friends of mine from college. They live in Austin and their taste is modern, hip, and maybe a little bit whimsical (check out Micah’s stylish nursery). I stayed away from the traditional baby girl look with cuteness overload and lots of pink. The color palette is soft and feminine, but not too juvenile.

I used little pieces of some favorite prints – precious bits of Heather Ross’s long out of print Munki Munki and some of her more recent Far Far Away 3 line. There is also some Melody Miller and Flea Market Fancy.

I quilted it with an overall stipple and tiny pebbles on the print squares.

Micah's Quilt | Detail

The binding is green and white houndsooth by Paula Prass (Summer Soiree from two or three years ago).

Micah's Quilt | Binding

It took me ages to make this quilt because I was just not sewing much last year after my son was born. I’m glad its finished so I can mail it to its new home. Happy first birthday, little Micah!

Dimensions: 40″ x  32″

Fabrics: Ruby Star Shining by Melody Miller, Munki Munki and Far Far Away by Heather Ross, Flea Market Fancy by Denyse Schmidt, Bella Solids from Moda Fabrics, various Japanese import prints, Summer Soiree by Paula Prass. 

Quilting Thread: Aurifil 50 wt #2600

Started: March 2012

Completed: January 2013