quilty as charged.

HELLO!

Winter is generally a slower season for me, but slow is an understatement of this winter's progression. It crawled. Like a backwards snail. Covered in molasses. In winter! It was a slow start and a time of settling in and getting acquainted with our new home town and life in Vermont.

This time also included a small hiatus for my Mac out of my hands and into Mike's for his construction work. I had withdrawals. But I am glad to announce that he has his own Mac now! I thank his persistence and his boss for this. So now that the sluggish north country winter is over and I finally have my beloved Mac back, I can move onto and share some fun projects that are in the works! Yippy skippy!

This project share is still in it's middle stages of completion. And it is something that I've only helped supply some inspiration for, but cannot take any credit for. My mom gets all the kudos for the expertise and perfect craftsmanship that has gone into it thus far. She is what I would consider the master of all quilters. Queen of quilts. She beautifully combines her artistic eye for color and pattern with her knowledge of textiles and tools with her precise geometric and logistical planning. Luckily for me and our baby girl, she is focusing all that amazing energy into a quilt for her grand baby #2 [#1 is not mine...you can meet her here!].

So first things first, after much pinning and perusing, I found a few pinspirations [see my thought process here!] for baby girl's quilt-to-be.

I wanted boho.
And country.
And a nod to the outdoors.
And color. Lots of color. Not a lot of white.

The photo below [left] was my favorite color scheme. So my mom and I met in April to literally dissect the Portsmouth Fabric Company in downtown Portsmouth, NH to find the perfect combination of fabrics to tell this color story through an eclectic collection of fabrics. Success. The fabrics we found mixed with some of my mom's Liberty of London scraps have created the look I was going for. The photo below [right] is the stack of quilted blocks so far. They are TREES! My nod to the outdoors.

There is a lot more to go into this project and I cannot wait to see it all come together. 

Some details: 

* There will be fifty trees. FIFTY!

* Each fabric is only used to make two trees. 

* Some of these fabrics had to be fussy cut...a term I picked up in April. Literally, a fussy and deliberate way to cut fabric so that you get the right part of the pattern in the trees. This ensures that there are no headless woodland creatures or interrupted and wonky looking blooms. 

* The trees and background are machine pieced out of tricky trapezoids and triangles.

* The trunk of each tree was pulled from one Japanese fabric. It was perfect. And the only piece left! 

Details not seen here: 

* The back...well...wait for it. It's amazing. 

* A boarder? Why yes! A whimsical very pale lavender with small white polka dots. This is a quilt for a little lady, after all. 

* An edge binding? None other than Liberty of London's Strawberry Theif. A family fabric favorite. 

* Quilting. My favorite part. The part of every quilt that holds it together like steel and hugs in the fabrics to create that soft already-loved look. This is hand done by Mom. Her hand quilting is out of this world. 

Baby girl's quilt is in blocks right now and still awaiting the rest of the fifty. Here are a few images I took while playing with layout options this morning. 

And since I bet no one can stand the anticipation of how this will come together, I'll give you a look at one of Mom's finished pieces. Grand baby #1 [little lady Cordelia's] star and pinwheel quilt. 

XO.