Quilt 30: Oh, Baby...

Back in 2012, I decided to get a subscription to a quilting magazine. The one I selected happened to have a "new subscribers" deal - offering a package of fat quarters for free. 6 meters of fat quarters, no less!!! Uh huh. Well - the much anticipated 6 meters arrived and it was.... all... pastel baby prints. No.. not just pastel. Incredibly pastel - pale, pale fabrics.  So pale I can't get a decent photo.

It's been sitting in my UFO closet since then. I didn't know anybody at the time who'd want a quilt made with prints like this, so I left it.

Then friend "Kay" announced she's about to become a grandmother for the first time. Kay is so excited that, well, it's a pleasure to see her so happy. And with my longarm coming, I quickly remembered those prints and decided I should make a baby quilt for what we now know will be a lovely granddaughter.

The prints are actually pretty - tiny petite patterns - but so very pale I can't get a decent photo.

The fabric is very soft, smooth. After washing it and getting the sizing out, I LOVE the way it feels.  Well, for totally free fabric, not bad!  The fly in the ointment is the fact that this fabric is almost impossible to iron out flat. You look at it and it forms wrinkles before your horrified gaze.

I almost threw the fabric out - but then realized that if the quilting done on this project is very dense, it might not matter. The density of the stitches should mask the wrinkly fabric, especially if the blocks aren't too large.

So OK... away we go.

Here's the design:

Pink and yellow blocks - "snowball" blocks with minty green corners.

As I assembled the blocks - oh heavens.. this fabric gave me fits. It's so very pale that it was way too easy to accidentally flip the pieces and sew right sides to wrong sides. My seam ripper got a workout. AND - the fabric is somewhat unforgiving; ripped out seams left indelible holes.  EEK!

I went to my favorite fabric shop in search of a print to use as a border and found exactly NOTHING that matches the shades in this fabric.  (Hear the silent scream?)  I could border it with white, of course, but that just doesn't appeal.

After assembling the top, I headed back to the quilting shop and found a soft pastel lime-green strip which will serve well for the backing and binding.

But (oh heavens... am I under some kind of curse?) after I got home realized I might not have bought enough of it.