Puppy Love crib quilt reveal

I am feeling pretty accomplished right now. I’m 21 weeks along and I’ve already got the crib quilt done for my baby’s nursery. It’s quite the feat considering I normally need a deadline to get anything done.

Really it wouldn’t have been that surprising if I had been putting the final stitches in the binding while in labor. But the little guy is quilted, bound and labeled.

I really like how the quilting turned out on this quilt. Normally I quilt in very dense patterns, taking hours for the smallest projects and half-a-dozen bobbins. But this one just took three hours and one bobbin, which I think is a record for me.

http://instagram.com/p/jCNdqtv4ZL/

I started with the background. First I traced a dog bone cookie cutter at random intervals throughout the background using a chalk marking tool. When I quilted, I traced around the dog bones and then connected them using loose swirls and loops.

I repeated the loop pattern throughout the quilt to give it some consistency. There are large loops in the skinny border and small loops in the wide border. One tip I’ve learned in my free motion quilting studies is never to get too complicated when you have a busy border print like I did for this quilt. It’s hard to see anything but texture, so all your hard work is lost.

The dog was very fun to quilt. A small-to medium-sized meander is my go to stitch for animal bodies. I just love the texture of this stitch, plus it allows me the flexibility to move around the curves and objects, such as eyes and mouths.

The ears were another story. I have two cocker spaniels at home and when I look at this quilt, I see them. I wanted to mimic to the look of their wavy, curly ears with the quilting, so I quilted in wavy lines all the way down the ear about half-an-inch apart. But the real magic happened when I washed and dried the quilt. I use an 80/20 cotton polyester blend for batting, so all my quilts shrink about 3 to 5 percent when I put them in the wash. The shrinkage makes my quilting designs pop even more. I love the effect, especially on the ears.

I absolutely love how this quilt turned out. It’s simple, but cute and fun. The quilt will make the perfect focal point of the nursery. Now I’ve got to get to work making valances, crib skirts, boppy covers, soft books and fabric baskets to match the quilt. My goal is to make the nursery look like a page out of a Pottery Barn catalog, but with all handmade decor.

And in the interest of providing a full disclaimer, I’m totally going to do another quilt reveal once the nursery is done in late March or early April.