Tula Pink for Olivia Violet

This is my Friday Sew & Tell for amylouwho!



When my friend from college, Erin, found out that baby #3 was a girl, I knew I wanted to make her a quilt.

Her shower was last weekend, and though sadly, I didn't get to go, I did get to show her a picture. :)

I promised you all a full process write-up, and here it is (the quilt and the write-up)

Here's how I did it.

I had a Plume FQ bundle... so I pulled out the pinks, and left them folded as they come (I think I had to iron out a couple of them). 

I put it on the 4 1/2" square section of the die that came with the Go! cutter.

After wheeling it through...

...I had a lovely pile of 4 1/2" squares.  

A few of them were a tiny bit off where the fabric folded, but they were close enough, and I didn't have to do any prepping of the fabric (which was nice). :)  Using the pre-folded fat quarters really wasn't technically enough seam allowance, but to save time, I'd probably still do it again, and just adjust my seam allowance if necessary, for the pieces that were folded too small to cover the 4 1/2" die.

While I was making this quilt, I discovered one of my favorite features of the Go!

When cutting, I could fold up one side, and use my cutting mat. (Those are chubby star four-patch strips to the right)

And while I was pressing, I folded up the other side to keep it out of the way.

Very handy.

For my white squares, I had cut 5" x WOF strips, and folded them so they were six layers of fabric deep.  It is a little harder to crank through six strips than four; however not as hard as using the ruler and rotary cutter on the cutting mat.

A couple blog friends had asked me about the accuracy of the squares.  Because I didn't have enough seam allowance for my pinks to give an accurate assessment, I decided to check with the whites, where I did have enough overlap.

I had two of my squares (out of 24) that were 4 3/8" instead of 4 1/2".  All the rest were a perfect 4 1/2" square.  Why those two weren't, I do not know, and should have paid better attention to what position they were in the cutting stack.

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The inspiration:

• This little girl will be named "Olivia Violet Cosette."  So I had to go with Tula Pink... 'cause Pink and purple were always my favorite colors growing up.  Plume, with its little Fleur d' Lis, also emphasized the Parisian in her "Cosette."  (Yes, I was sad that Parisville wasn't available yet)
• Olivia's room is hot pink and watermelon green... this fabric fit that scheme beautifully.
• Olivia's mama is a very talented singer and song-writer; I figured her daughter might have a little bit of diva...so some glamour was a must.
• Tula herself gave some of the inspiration, with this quilt design...

To start, I had some simple HSTs (half-square triangles), but wasn't sure how I was going to lay them out.  

I decided to keep them all the same direction, and I added the little framed section because I wanted to put a piece of art in the middle (off to the side actually).

I moved it off to the side because to me, it balanced the symmetry of the HSTs by being a bit asymmetrical (that's what I was thinking at least).  

The scalloped edge is that little bit of diva I was talking about.  I did it by putting a glass lid on the edge and tracing the edge in and out.

For the quilting, I decided on simply echoing the movement of the triangles with long, diagonal straight lines on either side of the triangle seams.  I probably should have quilted some vertical lines too, but I'm happy with this look overall, and I was really excited to finish it.

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What I love about this quilt:

• All those glorious pinks
• The way the white anchors the design
• The interplay of the really strong, masculine triangles, with the grandiose florals, and feminine curve in the border
• The cute label (done with a couple selvage edges so the name of the fabric line and those cute little Fleur d' Lis could be shown off.)
• Pretty much everything.

What I don't love about this quilt:

• I'm not sure how I feel about the backing (it's a hot pink flannel from JoAnn's... it was on sale, and hey -- we're on a budget)

• I'm also not sure if I made the right binding choice.  I kind of wish I'd have gone with a solid green.  The binding is machine stitched, done on the bias, like in this tutorial.  With the bias binding, it was really easy to get around those curved edges.
• That's about it. :)

(Oh, and Steiger's usually sleeping while I do my photo shoots, but sometimes he's not.  This is the kind of thing he does on those days). :)