Once Upon a Rhyme

 

When my former co-worker was expecting her third baby (the one for whom I made Swan Lake Surprise), she didn't know the gender. As I mentioned previously, I was hoping she would have a boy as I have a couple of boy's quilts ready. But first, I thought maybe I should just make a gender neutral quilt and I could even give it to her before the baby was born because it wouldn't matter what gender it was. So, I pulled out this panel that I had purchased a number of years previously, to see what I could do with it. It was actually a cloth book panel of nursery rhymes, but I planned to make the pages into blocks and use it for a baby quilt. However, when I pulled it out and started measuring, I discovered that not all of the pages were the same size - the front and back "cover" pages were slightly largely than the rest of the pages - and they weren't perfectly on square. So, I decided to border each page, and trim them down to make a 10" square block, and that would deal with any irregularities. And use 10" quilt blocks alternating with the books pages to give me 20 blocks, yielding a finished quilt size of 44" x 54". 
I had to decide on what block to use, so I looked through the "block library" in Beautiful Patchwork Gifts, and selected Small Baskets. I chose to use solids so that I could more easily coordinate the colours with the panel. 

I'm really happy with my fabric - and block - selection. It's so bright and cheerful. As a matter of fact, I like it so well that I actually considered putting a hanging sleeve on it and finding some wall space for it. I may still do that since I don't have a current recipient in mind. (My ex-husband's niece has a baby due next year, but once again, I'm hoping it's a boy. 😄).
I ordered the backing fabric at the same time as I ordered the solid fabrics and figured it worked well enough with the nursery rhyme theme. 

Unfortunately, it is directional, and I decided to keep it that way, so I couldn't do just one horizontal seam through the back. I had to do a little more patchwork to keep it all running in the right direction.
When it came to the quilting, for once, I wasn't indecisive. I was going to use Wee Ones, a great pantograph for baby quilts, that features pacifiers, baby bottles, teddy bears, rocking horses, sailboats, rattles and rubber duckies. Adorable, and fairly quick and easy. 

In the meantime, I found out my friend had a baby girl, so I opted for a girl's quilt instead and left this one on the back burner so that I could get Iris Medallion done. Now that it's finished and in my sister's hands (she loves it, by the way), I finally got the binding on this one and Puzzle.