baby quilt for Zachary

Our nephew and his wife welcomed son #2 - Zachary - to their family in November, 2013. Fortunately they are a patient couple, since I'm just now getting to work on his baby quilt.

John (the daddy) provided me with the paint colors for Zachary's room - a light grey and medium blue - and I set to work choosing the fabrics. They are all Kona solids except for one leafy print from Vanessa Christenson's line "Simply Color" for Moda. This is the final layout before sewing, and it was 100% inspired by this quilt I saw on Pinterest. I have no information about the maker of the original quilt, but isn't it fabulous?!

I drafted a pattern for the giant drunkard's path blocks on kitchen freezer paper by first drawing a 19" square. To make the curve I marked two points: the first was 1" down from the top left corner of my square, and the second was 1" in from the lower right corner of my square. I then tied a string that was the same length as the distance between the lower left corner and the mark in the lower right corner to a pencil. Holding the loose end of the string in the lower left corner, I moved the pencil in a counter-clockwise arc motion, drawing the gentle sloping curve upward to meet the mark in the upper left corner. (Wow - that would have been easier to explain with some photos, huh?)

But then I needed to add 1/4" seam allowances to my pattern, so I cut the pattern along the outer edges and the arc creating two separate pieces. After taping each to another layer of freezer paper, I used a small ruler to mark an additional 1/4" all along each edge of the pattern.

These new lines are where I cut to create the actual pattern pieces.

The great thing about using freezer paper to create pattern pieces is that you can iron the shiny side to your fabric which creates a temporary bond holding the pattern piece in place while you cut - no pins! And you can use it over and over again. This photo shows the pattern pieces "fused" to my green fabric. I started with five different fabrics - off white, grey, medium blue, grass green, and the navy leaf print - and cut both pattern pieces from each fabric since I was unsure of how I wanted to arrange the colors.

Six alternate layouts were considered before I decided on the final one. No green, no navy...

And these variations using all five colors. I really like that center circle created in this mosaic - maybe I'll file that away for a future project!

This should be a quick quilt to finish - lots of straight quilting lines spaced about 3/4" apart and the navy print for the binding. John thinks they may hang the quilt, so I'll be sure to add a hanging sleeve too.

What do you think of the final layout?