Cutting up Fabric

DD Elaine texted me Friday evening to ask if I wanted to cut up some fabric.  Of course I did!  We are collaborating on a baby quilt project for a friend of hers.

I fell in love with this Moda Bakeshop quilt and told Elaine I needed to make it, even if it weren't for my eventual-someday-in-the-future grandchild.  Being the age she is, lots of her friends and acquaintances are either pregnant or new moms, so baby showers are plentiful.  I remember those days :)

Some weeks ago we went to Superbuzzy, the in town brick-and-mortar version of the very popular online shop that stocks hundreds of modern fabrics and many Japanese designers, to pick out adorable prints like the ones above.  We chose 13 fat-eighth pieces, which was way more than needed but gave more leeway in featuring the designs on the small petals (the quilt designer used charm squares).

 

 I washed and dried the fabrics and Elaine even ironed--something she says she never does.

Then we traced and traced and traced to get 72 petal-shapes cut out of all the fabrics. Despite the late hour, Elaine wanted to push on and see what they would look like on our Kona gray background, so I ironed and cut the piece to size.

We gave it a thumbs up :)  I have to do more tracing, lining up 12 circles on the background for the full raft of petal placing to come.  The designer used fabric glue to fix the petals to the background before machine blanket stitching around, coating the entire petal before sticking it in place.  I'm not sure I want to do that, afraid that it will make the fabric stiff, and may just use dots of fabric glue instead.  Hmm.  This may call for some practice pieces. Anyway, it was nice to play with fabric and visit with my DD Elaine after a very full work week!