Make. Brenda's Baby Cakes Quilt.

This quilt is from the Baby Cakes pattern found in the book Strip Happy - Quilting on a Roll #5306. I was just thinking that it is the very first quilt I've made from start to finish but I forgot about a wall hanging quilt that I made for my mom (BY HAND...what was I thinking?) for her birthday a few years back.

The inspiration from this quilt came from a shirt. My friend, Brenda, sent me a box of yarn and other various craft supplies several months ago. Included in that package was one of her husband's old shirts. She told me that she loved that shirt and thought I might want to make it into a dress for my daughter like the ones I blogged about at crafty conservative. A few weeks later, Brenda's husband was killed in a car accident. I couldn't bring myself to making a dress out of that shirt so I made a quilt instead.

All of the light colored fabric is from the shirt. It had this great pleating detail all along the front of the shirt and I knew I wanted to showcase that. This pattern really was a perfect fit for what I wanted to do. It uses jelly roll size strips (2 1/2" X 42"). These are fairly easy to cut yourself or some quilting shops sell jelly roll packs of matching fabric already cut to that size. My local quilt shop, after hearing the background story of the quilt, used their in-house machine to cut the fabric for me. It was so quick and much appreciated. Thanks, The Quilted Kitty.

This quilt came together rather quickly and was virtually painless. I say virtually, because I had some minor mishaps with the binding. It was my first time to do it and I totally messed it up (a couple of times). One good thing that come out of that was I now have a walking foot for my machine. That was a lifesaver!

Despite my binding difficulties, I was smart enough to get it professionally quilted and I think it turned out really beautiful. The scallop edge around the quilt was what I added on the binding. I was careful to photograph the best part. There are some truly wonky scallops around it. I just told myself that this way, she'll always remember it was handmade by me!

To help me practice quilting, I've decided to join M and M Studio's quilting bee. I believe there are still a few slots open if you are interested in joining me. You can contact Maranda via email (click on her profile for the address) to sign up.