Hazel's Quilt

Please excuse these less than ideal pictures.  I realized when taking these that I always used to photograph my quilts using the clothes line in the back yard of our old house.  We don't have on here so taking pictures of these big quilts is super tough.  It's hard to get the camera up high enough and straight enough to get a good shot.  And let's not even get started on the lighting.  If there wasn't 12 + inches of snow on the ground right now, I'd take them outside.  But, this is going to have to do.

This is Hazel's quilt made out of the fabric everyone sent for her weekly picture project.  Just like with Abby, I took pictures of Hazel each week on a different yard of fabric.  It was a great way to show how she grew, talk about the loved ones that help contribute to the quilt and make something super special and memorable for her to have and cherish for always.

I sent this quilt away to be quilted, and I think I will send out all my quilts from this point on.  I've never been happy with my own free-motion or straight line quilting and while I know the only way to improve is to practice, it's also a little disheartening when you put hours and hours and lots of money into a quilt only to be unhappy with one of the final steps.  So, I'll subcontract that part of my quilting process and I'll be so much happier with the result.

Hazel's quilt is ever so slightly smaller than the queen sized one I made for Abby.  Hazel's crib will convert to a double bed when we transition her so I made this quilt the same length as Abby's but slightly smaller width wise so it would fit her big girl bed.  I also felt like a queen size was a big too big for a couch blanket which is what I'm guessing these will become when the girls are big enough to want to pick their own bedding.  I'm hoping they drag these things to college, to their first houses and use them for years and years to come...but only time will tell.

The herringbone pattern I picked for this quilt is similar to what I did for Abby, but different too.  I like that the blocks are nice and big to show off the fabric and i love that I stuck with my gut and used white as the contrast.  I did a very light blue for Abby's because I was worried about the white getting dirty etc but I'd wished I went with my staple white or grey.  Here's a link to Abby's quilt if you want to compare.

For Hazel's back I decided to just use up some of my favorite pieces of fabric from her photo project.  It's a nice way to use up some of the 50+ yards of fabric I have, and a fun way to showcase some of my personal favorites.  I wish I'd done the same for Abby's.  I realized that I'm very drawn to the bright, multicolored fabrics with big patterns on them, but they are hard to incorporate into quilts where you aren't going for a scrappy or childish look.  I have LOTS and LOTS of novelty fabric around here after doing these two photo projects spanning a total of four years, so if anyone out there wants to pick through my stash, you're more than welcome!