baby quilt – Daily Fiber

Sunday Reveal: Baby has arrived!

Posted on August 17, 2025August 18, 2025 by Laura Kate

Ten days ago, my sister texted me with wonderful news: My niece’s baby arrived, on her due date. The newest family member is a little girl, named Roseanna Joy. Within days I had assembled the Oregon Natives quilt blocks and added the border.

This quilt is made in strip-piece fashion and finished out at 48 x 58. I’m pretty happy with the result. Using fabrics (mostly from Connecting Threads) that match (or approximate) the color palette provided by the new mom, I organized the quilt around ten applique blocks with images of creatures and plants that live in the baby’s home state. My daughter assisted me in designing and sewing these feature blocks.

Color palette provided

For those readers who may be surprised by the hap-hazard way that individual strips meet each other, let me say this: It’s intentional. An ecologist would call this style “disordered uniformity.” At the detail level, things seem to be chaotic, but when looked at from a respectable distance, patterns emerge. It is the way of nature.

Here is a quick close-up of the mammals, birds, reptile, fish, insects, plant and fungus that will greet little Roseanna.

Steps to completion still await me. I will need to make the label, assemble the quilt sandwich and do the quilting. That part is making me a little nervous, because I haven’t figure out what quilt pattern to use. Any advice from you experts out there will be appreciated.

Linking to Songbird Designs

hand embroidery, painting, quilting

Fun Friday Finished Blocks

Posted on July 25, 2025 by Laura Kate

The Oregon Baby quilt block creation phase is ju……..st about done. Today I want to share two blocks that I finished and two images of blocks that my daughter finished.

Let’s start with sketches: My first attempt at rendering a painted turtle didn’t work out very well in the applique process. It was too complicated.

While I loved the drawing, I decided to start over. Here is my revised sketch with some colored pencil enhancements.

and here is my block complete with applique, machine stitches and painted details.

(there is a little smudge of paint that rubbed off my hand. I’ll have to find a way to cover it up before sewing this block into the quilt.)

Next I sketched a fish common to the northwest: coastal cut-throat trout.

This was easy to applique, and required very little paint to render the fishy details.

Yesterday, I was thrilled to receive two photographs of blocks completed by Amanda. During the preliminary phase of the quilt design, I had shared two sketches with her.

She took these designs and interpreted them in her own style. In addition to applique and paint, she added some expert hand embroidery touches to these blocks. Her results really bring these cute animals to life.

In the meanwhile, I have sewn up all of the strip pieced blocks. There are only two more feature blocks to finish before the quilt top can be assembled.

I’m pretty happy right now, and feel confident the quilt will be ready to send when my goddaughter’s baby arrives in August.

drawing, painting, quilting

Another Friday, More Finished Blocks

Posted on July 4, 2025July 4, 2025 by Laura Kate

This week was moderately productive. I finished several more blocks for the Oregon Baby quilt, including two feature blocks. There are now four features finished, except for any finishing embroidery touches.

I made the western meadowlark and baby rabbit blocks.

Beginning sketch for meadowlark:

Progress photos and finished block:

Beginning sketch of rabbit:

Some additional remarks about the rabbit: The original photo was of a hybrid rabbit – white fur and brown patches, pale blue eyes. I’ve been observing many wild rabbits that hop about the garden here in my new home. Their coloration is more earthy and the eyes appear jet black. So that is how I made this rabbit. Also, the poor bunny has no nose or mouth yet. Those details will be added with embroidery floss. And maybe a few whiskers to boot.

Now when I line up the completed blocks, the quilt looks like this:

Two rows out of five. The big picture is coming into focus.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are enjoying your long week-end (U.S. readers) Please drop me a word or two about your current project. I’d love to know what feeds your creative impulses.

painting, quilting

Friday Finish: Baby Quilt Feature Blocks

Posted on June 27, 2025 by Laura Kate

Hi, friends,

I’m thinking that it’s time to reveal the first finished blocks that I made for Oregon Baby quilt. As I described in earlier posts, these would be various animals found in the baby’s home state.

I started with the rufous hummingbird and the Oregon swallowtail butterfly. Here are photos showing the steps to completion:

Hummingbird:

Butterfly:

Oregon Swallowtail pencil sketch, a little color added

Slight exaggeration here: The butterfly needs its antenna . I will hand embroider this detail before I assemble the quilt.

Some of you may think that I omitted showing all the steps in the process. And you’re right. I had to turn the pencil drawings into pattern pieces before I could convert the design to fabric. Without going into tedious details, this work was done using tracing paper and photo copies. I also did zigzag machine stitching around the butterfly and straight stitching on all the edges of the hummingbird.

Now here is an photo of how these panels look next to the string-pieced blocks.

My apologies to those who are bothered by the wonkiness of the strips. Yes, it was deliberate. So sue me.

The fun will continue over the weekend as I translate more of my sketches into quilt blocks. Which will I choose next?

drawing

Sketching Sunday

Posted on June 15, 2025 by Laura Kate

This week I completed three more drawings of small creatures destined for use on Oregon baby quilt.

The reference photo came from the North Dakota Minot Daily News

I found the reference image on Wikipedia Commons

Found the reference for this cutie on Newsweek and it is a Getty image. The bunny is likely a domestic rabbit, not a native one. But no matter – any baby bunny is highly suitable to grace a baby quilt.

Today’s weather is temperate, calm winds and periodic rain. Just right for me to focus on my projects. What are you working on these days?