Finished Object: The Shabby Chic Bricklayer Baby Quilt. Years in the making because of a busted sewing machine, it's turned out to be the best quilt yet!

I mentioned this quilt in a post about this time last year, and I'm so happy that it's finally done! There were a lot of trials and tribulations with this one, namely a bum old sewing machine that wasn't doing me any favors. I ended up going back and ripping out all of the quilting I had done on my old machine and redoing it properly with the walking foot on my new one, and I am so happy I did! And it took me forever to choose a binding, but I ended up finding a very subtle yellow and white chicken wire patterned piece that was perfect!

The top and little pieced strip on the back are made entirely from recycled fabrics, mostly shirting weight samples form my fabric rep friend Ivy, along with some damaged vintage clothes that my mom cut up and saved for me (the red squares with white flowers and the pink squares with blue flowers for sure, but I forget which others). 

I hand-cut all the squares instead of using a straight edge and a rotary cutter, because I wanted it to look just a little wonky and distinctly handmade. And the backing fabric is vintage with little wide-weave stripes wich makes it so soft! This is by far the softest, sweetest, most huggably adorable quilt I have ever made. My head might explode from cuteness if I ever see a real baby wrapped up in it!

Here's the quilt pre-washing on the night I finished it. Nicholas is thinking "Ooh, something new for me to curl up on!" Sorry buddy, not going to happen.

 As a matter of personal preference, I don't pre-wash any fabrics I intend to quilt with. This means that they shrink the first time you wash them, and it gives them that lovely wrinkly-soft quality that vintage heirloom quilts have from being washed for decades. So, above is how it would look if I had pre-washed my fabrics. And here's how it looks now, washed and dried and looking like it's been snuggled for years already:

I was going to list this little beauty in my etsy shop, but a visitor to the craft room saw it and snatched it up straight away. I know it will be very happy and loved where it's going!