Working feverishly, bordering on madness.

"Sylvia?"
"Yes, Mickey?"
"How do make your quilt bigger?"
"Add a border."
"And if it's not big enough?"
"Add another border."
"And if it's still not big enough?"

My husband never likes to tell me if a coworker is having a baby, because he knows that he'll have to face the awkward moment of handing over this thing that his wife made. And he's right, it's pretty much guaranteed that I will make a quilt every time. This time, the quilt is going to a coworker who is so young and beautiful, we were amazed to learn that she is going to be a grandmother. Her daughter is expecting a boy very soon.

My inspiration fabric was a Michael Miller fabric showing kids observing zoo animals. I started with alternating squares and quarter-square triangles, which created a colorful diamond pattern.  It was cute, but it didn't end up big enough. It needed a border.

I like to look at quilt blogs that subscribe to a "modern" quilting aesthetic, and I've learned that borders are considered less modern and more old-fashioned. Since a lot of my work tends toward the modern, it feels like I haven't done a bordered quilt in quite a while.

Five borders later, it finally felt done. The kids are back in school, and immediately brought home colds and sniffles. I'm mostly over mine, but with my monthly deadline drawing near, I was working under a Nyquil fog. There were times I looked at the quilt and almost not recognize the work that I'd done over the past several hours.

I was thrilled to find a use for a loud, large-patterned fabric that's been lurking around my sewing room for a few years. For the corners, I put in some colorful fussy-cut animals.

 

I finished it up with a solid red dimpled minky backing and a striped binding.

 

 This quilt is cute and all, but it seem like it's missing something....

Much better.

Of course it's big enough to be a play mat, but the more important question is, do babies love to cuddle with it?

 

They do!

This quilt is headed to California, so I was able to check off a big state on the map. I'm proud to say that my quilts have made it to 20% of this great nation!