Thursday, March 1, 2012

Whatever fortune brings, don't be afraid of doing things. - A.A. Milne

A few months ago I was approached to do a commission for a baby quilt. The baby's sex wouldn't be known prior to birth (although I can tell you now that she ended up being a girl) so the quilt needed to be gender-neutral and one special request was made - that the focal fabric be classic Winnie-the-Pooh.


I like to refer to classic Winnie-the-Pooh as "naked Pooh". I was a little bit leery at first of taking on this commission because I have never made a baby quilt that uses typical "baby" or kid-type fabrics - it's just not my thing. But I said yes in the end because of the person who requested it.


Let me tell you - finding the classic Pooh fabric was a bit of a feat! It is out-of-print and not all of it was 100% cotton either. In the end I ended up turning to eBay where I paid a bit more than I would have liked (the shipping was positively atrocious too) but I managed to find a fat quarter bundle of four prints - one of which I didn't use because it was just a pink floral - and enough of a classic Pooh flannel for the backing.


I fussy-cut all of the centre squares and the cornerstones are somewhat fussy-cut too. The centres of the blocks at the four corners are hard to see because the fabric is a light-blue Pooh toile on white but they're fussy cut too. I paired each of the centre blocks with two prints from the City Weekend collection by Oliver + S for Moda. City Weekend is one of those collections that really grows on you; I wasn't so sure about it when I first picked it up at sample spree at Quilt Market in May 2010 but since then I have really fallen in love with many of the prints - especially the basic dots and grids - the yellow mini dot is now one of my favourite fabrics.


The centre block is definitely my favourite - I just love all of the colours together! I used nine different Kona solids too for this quilt - I'm pretty sure these were Maize, Banana, Lemon, Sunflower, Bluebell, Pear, Honeydew, Ice Frappe, and Aqua. Don't quote me on the colours though, I was comparing the cuts I have to my colour card and I might be off on a couple since a number of the colours are very similar. Oh yes, and I also used white Kona too!


The blocks with the geese are modified Weathervanes that I saw in one of my quilting books and the other four are ones that I modified off the original Weathervanes (when I got tired of making HSTs *wink*). I am really happy with the way it ended up! Using the Pooh fabrics and trying to come up with colours and a design without knowing anything about the intended mother nearly killed me, but in the end I think that it came out quite cute without being overly "cutesy" and the colours are gender-neutral but also really fun.

Classic Pooh Quilt
Commission
Finished Quilt: 36x36"
Completed: February 17, 2012

12 comments:

  1. I love it! You did a beautiful job, and it's so nice that it's definitely a baby themed quilt without resorting to the more sickly colors that so many gender neutral quilts seem to end up with.

    Looks fab!!

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  2. Oh Kaye, this is such a sweet quilt! I love how soft and snuggly it looks! :)

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  3. What a beautiful quilt! I love Pooh! And that is our son's birthday... he just turned 18! :)

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  4. Another gorgeous quilt - lucky little one!
    Hugs - Lurline

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  5. What a gorgeous quilt! I made a quilt when I was pregnant with my daughter from classic pooh fabrics, she is now 13 and my son who is 11 and inherited the quilt when he was born still loves it and uses it! I have the left overs put away somewhere safe, I am holding on to them for when my son has kids of his own :)

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  6. Adorable quilt! Looks like a wonderful quilt for a child to cuddle up in!

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  7. Oh, Kaye, it's beautiful! I'm a huge fan of classic Pooh and I'd want to cuddle up under this quilt!!! I love all the soft colors you used - sophisticated and not babyish at all!!

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  8. you did a fabulous job! I worked with Spiderman fabric at Christmas (totally not my thing) but grew fond of the quilt in the end....

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  9. "naked" pooh cracked me up! I have a question about the size of your baby quilt. I like baby quilts about this size or just a few inches larger (so I can use one width of fabric for the backing) and also just because I like size. However, so many blogs I see have baby quilts being HUGE to me. Did the person ask for this size? Just curious.

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