Something special for a new baby

One of my dearest friends had her third baby two weeks ago - a sweet little girl. We happen to have the same family makeup (girl, boy, girl) with the same age gaps, but hers were all born one year later. Couldn't have planned it better if we tried!

I have sewed for her eldest daughter before, and her son, but I really wanted to make something special for baby #3. I decided on a quilt early on, but took my time choosing the design. I wanted something pretty and suitable for a baby girl, but not too babyish.

I was really inspired by a quilt over at Freshly Pieced (oh how I love it!) and decided to try my own version. If you've been following my blog for a while, you'll know that I am not much of a quilter. My previous efforts have all been very basic - strips of squares sewn together with sashing in between. So I was a little nervous about attempting the urban lattice quilt, but it came together surprisingly well! I paper-pieced for the first time, and really loved it. It was easy to do and the results are great - I could never be that precise otherwise. This is one of those quits where precision is really important, otherwise the lattice will look all wonky and you won't get the same effect.

See?! Paper piecing gives great accuracy. I'm hooked.

I used fabrics from a FQ bundle of Amy Butler's Ginger Bliss collection. I've already bought some (okay, all) of Heather Ross' Nursery Versary collection to make another one.

The quilting is very simple. I'm really bad at that part, and, I think this design lends itself to simple quilting in order to show off the nice clean lines. And I'm lazy. I simply quilted around the coloured squares.

The backing is a basic pink and white polka dot from my stash.

I changed the dimensions of the blocks to suit myself. Each block is 6 inches square, making the quilt 36x36 inches. 

I was sad to part with this little number, I really like it. I hope I can stay motivated enough to make another, to keep, in the not too distant future.