When I learned a good friend was pregnant I had a brief moment of being bummed because I'd had something in mind to knit for her for ages but I cannot do that much knitting at the moment. I've also always known I'd make her at least one baby quilt. I perused the local fabric shops  but couldn't even come close to my list of criteria: bright, non-directional and not baby prints and if possible, flannel. It was the perfect excuse for a day trip up to Keepsake Quilting, the fabric mecca. I spent an entire afternoon and I swear I pulled out every single bolt of fabric off their shelves. I went back and forth, round and round and finally settled on the sun and moon fabric as the start of the quilt. After that things fell into place. I planned to sew a "quilt in a day " version of Trip Around the World. You number your fabrics 1-6. I usually try to have a good variation of light to dark and a variety of big and little prints mixed with solids. You start by cutting or tearing your fabric into strips, then sew those strips into panels and cross cut those into strips again (which creates strips of squares). In the photo with the blue cutting mat you can see my stack of panels before cutting and the next photo shows the strips of squares laid out into the preview.

Next you pick up those strips of squares in order, one stack for the top half of the quilt and another stack for the bottom, setting aside two strips for the center. Those two stacks get sewed together to form panels for the top and bottom. Next you must choose a color for the center square. I lay out the top and bottom panels and the two center strips and then place each fabric in the center to decide which I like best. Once the quilt top is  put together it's time to add the borders. I learned a new trick this time which improved my quilt significantly. I taped the quilt backing to the floor and then taped the quilt top over that before pinning them  together to sew. As you tape you pull gently until the fabrics are just taut. When I sew them together I have wrong sides facing out and I leave about a 12 inch gap along one side. That allows me to use the pillow case method to make the batting sandwich- it's fitting that I learned this from Martini Knitter.

After the quilt is everted and laid out nice and flat, I pin starting at the center and working my way out to the sides. Each time I do one of these I learn something new and gradually they are getting a bit less wonky and a bit more rectangular. I felt this one was true enough to do a little actual quilting so I machine quilted right along the edge of the border strip and then top stitched along the outside edge to close that little opening I'd left for turning. The last step is doing the ties. I used white embroidery floss for this but yarn would also work quite nicely. I usually tie every other diamond of squares. I'm still using the curved needle Martini Knitter gave me back when she helped me do one of these for Daniel. The cats were really fascinated with the quilt at this stage and every one of them had a wander across to inspect my work. I'd originally planned an orange backing but it turned out a few inches to short which ended up being a good thing because I was much more pleased with the galaxy fabric I used.