A Quilting I will go.

First order of business: pick out some combinations of fabric for some little quilts. How hard can it be, anyway? Well, it only took about an hour, but I managed to come up with the following. Each stack is a potential quilt, in miniature. Thank goodness babies are small. The rule I use is that it should take no more than 1.5 yards of fabric for the backing. Somewhere around 40" wide by 54" long.

Next, pick one of the stacks and start whacking. The center stack of the bottom row is the one I chose for this project.

In truth, the quilt magazine instructions read like this: "Getting started: Pre-wash and iron all fabrics. Sew with 1/4" seam allowances. Press all seams as you sew. Always sew a sample block before cutting an entire quilt." Guess what? I don't do the last step, hardly ever. Why? Well, with a rotary cutter you can afford to get crazy. Besides, how else will I ever use up that stash?

The first pattern I decided to use is called Patience Corners. Really much more simple than it sounds. With trusty cutter in hand, I attacked the small stack of fabric and started cutting. Cut strips, sew strips, cut again, sew some more, cut again and surprise, squares. Then I laid them out and put them together. Add a few borders to make the thing closer to my desired dimensions and a quilt top appears.

Here is the finished top. I think I'll wait until I have at least one more of them complete before I start putting the backing and batting together. Besides, I've used almost the entire stack of fabric I picked out and I don't have enough for a binding. Back to the stash.

I'm confident that the completed quilt will make a little girl very happy. Hmm... which set of parents is having a girl? I wish I knew.

I must apologize. I think the camera's flash washed out the colors.