Buns in the oven

Time to unveil a few of my "top secret" sewing projects. First is a baby quilt that my co-worker Sondra and I made for another colleague, Madelaine. A couple of years ago Sondra and I made a wedding quilt together for another work friend. That time we worked separately: she cut, I pieced, she quilted, I bound. This time around we thought it would be fun to work together. Sondra engaged in espionage and ascertained that Madelaine, who doesn't know the sex of the baby, was opting for gender-neutral green and brown in her nursery. (I admit to being terribly old fashioned, but I think not knowing is the way to go—the moment when the doctor or midwife announces whether you have a boy or girl is one of the truly magical surprises in life—and it leaves room for you to ask brilliant questions like the one I asked of the doctor—"Are you sure?"—when the baby is not the sex you imagined. The doctor said he was sure.)
Sondra not only found out the nursery colors, but knew that Madelaine really likes Amy Butler fabrics.We opted for a combination of Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry fabrics and that collaboration was an interesting one.
As we selected our fabrics we each had one we loved that the other person was uncomfortable with. So we each had to compromise and stretch our visual horizons a bit. She chose the dark green, which I see now was entirely necessary for contrast. I chose an Amy Butler fabric (middle row, outer two blocks) that incorporates the green and taupe and a bit of orangey-caramel color that I think helps tie the fabrics together. We both felt pretty happy in the end with the interplay of color and pattern. The quilt pattern is Cubic Rhythm from the Spring 2009 Quilts and More. We liked its graphic quality and thought it would go together quickly.
While we admit to doing a bit of seam ripping, by and large it was a pretty quick quilt. I cut it out in the a.m. and we finished putting it together by late afternoon. Pearl helped, of course. I did the machine quilting the following weekend and Sondra bound it and used her graphic design skills to create a perfect label.


We presented it to Madelaine last week, just in time for her scheduled c-section next Wednesday (that darned baby is breach and just won't turn). About a week after we'd had our sewing session, Sondra told me she's also got a bun in the oven and is due in October! So sneaky, that girl. While we were sewing we'd talked all about pregnancy and she never let on. She and Madelaine are going to be fabulous mothers and I'm so excited there will be babies in the office on occasion!