I finally finished the Central Park HST baby quilt that I started almost a year ago! It’s been quite a journey, and this quilt bears the imperfections that I prefer to consider “proof” that it’s handmade, not churned out by some factory in China for Pottery Barn!
Kate Spain’s Central Park line was one of the very first quilting fabrics I purchased, and I loved the color scheme and how it could be used for a boy or a girl. When I found out that some good friends of mine were expecting their third child and that they didn’t plan to find out whether it was a girl or a boy, I thought this was a good opportunity to use my Central Park charm squares to make a gender-neutral baby quilt! I put together the HST patchwork very quickly (using my Go Baby! cutter to cut out all the HSTs) but then got busy with other things, and before I knew it, the baby was born, and it’s a girl! So I added a big purple border to make it girly (and bigger, because the patchwork part ended up being smaller than I realized it would be).
One of my favorite things about this quilt is the “I Spy” back with fussy-cut animals.
Unfortunately, the “washable” marking pencil that I used did not wash out, and left very visible yellow lines throughout. I tried rubbing it off by hand and running it through the washing machine several more times, to no avail. Finally I resorted to using a bleach pen, which worked fairly well but soaked through to the back of the quilt several times and the bleach marks are VERY visible on the solid purple backing! (Mental note: always use a patterned fabric on the back of the quilt.)
It’s not perfect, and I definitely need to work on my accurate HST piecing (and invest in a different method of marking quilting lines!) but I think it’s such a happy quilt for a very happy baby! Now I just need to finish little gifts for the baby’s big brother and sister and I can finally give them this quilt!
I’m linking up to Skip to My Lou’s Made by You Monday.
Lulu 