Octagon baby quilt

With all the attention focused on my stepdaughter and her baby in 2019, I failed to make her cousin, my husband’s niece, anything for her newest arrival. Better late than never, right?

In December, I showed hubby a couple of pattern ideas from my scrapbook and pattern collection. Of all the options I showed him, he chose ‘Cameos’ by Fig Tree & Co. I do not know how many years that pattern has been sitting in my cupboard, so it is great to finally use it.

There is a big crease down the middle, but you get the idea.

The pattern has two versions, and I made the smaller version, which needs only 12 blocks and finishes at 46 × 60 inches (about 120 × 150 centimetres). I used the pattern for inspiration, but I did not closely follow the instructions; I decided that I would rather foundation paper piece the blocks because I knew that the elongated octagonal would be a perfect candidate for that method. I drew my own foundation templates and printed them at a local office supply store because each block was too big for my home printer.

I did not get my husband involved in the colour choices – I am not that silly. I tipped out my stash and chose fabrics in the same colours as the dogs that feature in the backing fabric, which I also used for the border and the block centres. The fabric is from the Sewing School range by Jodie Carleton for Ella Blue.

I chose fabrics from my stash that linked to the colour of the dogs in the main fabric.

A few things about this quilt, other than the cheerful colour palette, make me happy:

• The fabrics, except the pale polka-dot fabric used for the background, came from my stash.
• The blocks came together really easily.
• I was able to pattern match the backing fabric where I had to join two pieces.
• The binding makes me smile.

The background fabric has pale grey and yellow spots.

There is so much to love about a striped quilt binding, but a striped binding cut correctly on the bias from fabric that is printed diagonally to create a perfectly striped binding brings joy. To add to this joy, I was able to pattern match the stripes on all of the seams on the binding – even the very last one.

Oh, how the binding makes me smile.

I bought a metre of the brightly striped fabric a while ago because I saw its binding potential. I still have enough left to bind a second baby quilt. Oh, happy days!

Because the stripes are printed diagonally on the fabric, it creates the perfect striped bias binding.

I asked Donna Lawrence of Calico Quilting to quilt it for me, even though it is small enough for me to consider doing myself, and together we decided on a daisy design. With her long-arm machine, she does a far better job than I can in a fraction of the time. I wanted it finished and not turning into another guilt-trip UFO. I am feeling guilty enough about a late baby gift.

All finished!

The quilt was finished in less than two months (very unusual for me), and it has already been given into the care of my stepdaughter, who will be taking it to Canada for hand delivery next month. I barely had time to take a few happy snaps before handing it over.

It was a quick and relatively easy project for me, but I am really happy with how it turned out. I love it. I hope its tiny new owner likes it too.

These colours make me happy.

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