Carrie's Modern Baby Quilt with Mister Marbles E2E + Quilting Inspo from the Interior Design World

My quilting clients bring me the best quilts!  Seriously!  I am so inspired by this 40" x 40" baby quilt that I quilted for my client Carrie recently:

Mister Marbles E2E Quilting in King Tut 40 wt Cotton Thread, Color Temple

I love this quilt because it's so striking, modern, and abstract, making it a perfect choice for new  parents who prefer to avoid gender stereotypes in their nursery themes.  I also love that this baby quilt looks so sophisticated and artsy, yet the construction is simple and straightforward, ideal when the shower is next week and you're scrambling to come up with a gift.  All you need is an assortment of black and white print fabrics paired with a solid, sew a total of 64 HST (half square triangle) units that all have one solid color triangle sewn to one black and white print, and then you rearrange those units on your design wall until you have a fabulous layout like Carrie's...  And before you know it, you're done and it looks amazing.  I have quite a few black and white prints in my stash, so I'm tucking this idea away for the next time I need to make a baby quilt.

I quilted this for Carrie using my Mister Marbles design, using a heavier 40 weight King Tut cotton thread in color Temple (White) to ensure the quilting design would stand out so nicely against the solid green fabric -- I knew the quilting design would disappear in those busy black and white prints (this post contains affiliate links).  I like the energy and movement of those wiggly, ripply lines and circles in the quilting for this quilt.  The batting is Quilters Dream Bamboo, a blend of bamboo, silk, cotton, and Tencel that is my absolute favorite for baby quilts, so I stock it in the 60" wide bolts.  

Here's the whole quilt again in all of its fabulousness:

Carrie's 40 x 40 Baby Quilt with Mister Marbles E2E

 I just love the freshness of the spring green solid paired with Carrie's black and white prints:

An edge-to-edge quilting design like this one is a particularly good choice when you want to obscure the seamlines between two or more patches of the same fabric.  It helps to create the illusion of a more complex piecing design comprised of not just triangles but trapezoids, parallelograms, etc.  

Here's what Carrie's baby quilt top looked like before I quilted it for her:

Carrie's 40 x 40 Baby Quilt Top Before Quilting

You know what would make this project even faster and easier?  The 5" Finished HST die from AccuQuilt, which is on sale at the time I'm writing this.  If you happen to own the 10" Qube from AccuQuilt (a "Qube" is a boxed set of interchangeable fabric cutting dies that can be combined to create hundreds of different quilt blocks in a given size), the 5" finished HST die comes in that set.  The Qube sets are on sale right now, too, by the way...  We are heading into the season where everything is on sale.  ;-)

Now, this has absolutely nothing to do with Carrie's quilt, but it appeared in my inbox around the same time that Carrie's quilt was on my frame and my brain is making some kind of connection between the two...  This is giving me ideas!

Schumacher 5009690 Binary Wallpaper Panel by Porter Teleo

The black and white image is of a 54" x 144" wallpaper panel, one of a two panel set by Porter Teleo for Schumacher called Binary.  I look at that panel and I see quilt blocks, don't you?  Maybe it's the high contrast between the black and white or the "random" but balanced layout, but I am loving this bold, graphic wallpaper panel for some of the same reasons I love Carrie's baby quilt.  I don't know about you, but I look at that wallpaper and I see QUILT BLOCKS!  What if, instead of solid black and solid white fabric, the white areas were improv pieced crumbs using Kelly Young's technique from her book Scrappy Improv Quilting, and the black areas were either black fabric or some other contrasting solid color, like what Carrie did in her baby quilt?  The circles would be quick and fun appliqués.  I am now envisioning a set of two coordinating "panel" wall quilts like this, hanging on either side of my fireplace in the family room...

Meanwhile, what else have I been up to?  I've resumed working on the "quick skirt project" I started eight years ago, and it's nearly finished now -- expect to see a post about that project soon.  I'm also working on the broderie perse rosebuds for my FrankenWhiggish Rose needle turn appliqué blocks as well as piecing the Block Two units for my Scandi Deco bed quilt project.  New projects on the horizon include some casual knit garments to break in (and learn) my new Babylock coverstitch machine, a Sarah Fielke applique project, and the Laundry Basket Quilts reproduction quilt pattern Star Upon Stars (I'm feeling a lot more confident about that one now that I have the Star Upon Stars template set for checking accuracy along the way).  And my client Carrie is tempting me to start yet another new project -- wait until you see the other quilt she sent me for quilting, the Traverse row quilt designed by Tara Faughnan.  I'm saving that one for another blog post -- Be still, my beating heart!  😍

I'll be linking up today's post with my favorite linky parties, listed below.  Thanks for stopping by and happy quilting!

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

FRIDAY

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework