Daydreams, and Awesome News!

Fall Break has been kind and has afforded me lots of great, relaxing sewing time, and I was almost able to finish this little (45 x 45in.) baby quilt yesterday.  This morning, I just had to stitch the binding on and take advantage of the gorgeous morning light with a few photos.

This is a baby quilt for a friend at work.  She brought me a few focus fabrics for the quilt and let me have creative license with the rest.  I just love this color combination.  The red is really more of a pinkish red than is showing in the pictures, and it's just the right pop of color against the dreamy aquas and grays.

Another request from my friend is that the baby's name and birthdate be monogrammed and put into the quilt on the front.  This was certainly a first for me, and although I didn't do the monogramming myself, it did dictate the design of the quilt.  I wanted it to look like it belonged in the quilt, rather than a random patch stuck in the middle of the pattern.  I chose a Double Slice pattern, since the blocks created were the perfect size for including this.  I have covered the name/date in the picture, but you can still get an idea of how it fits into the quilt (where the arrow is pointing).  Now that it's finished, I think it's a neat little addition that makes the quilt special.

I went with an all over simple meander for the quilting, although I didn't quilt through the monogramming (that's the patch on the bottom left side that's unquilted).  I just love this aqua fabric, and it keeps the backing looking soft.

The binding is a great fabric that I found in the quilter's aisle at Joann's.  It's a sketchy print, and the perfect shade of pinkish red.  It was really difficult to find fabrics that were the right shade to match the fabric she gave me (the fabric she gave me is the one with the red and pink blossoms you can see really well here).  So when I saw that binding fabric, I snatched it right up!

And now, my awesome news!  I met with the owner of my local sewing shop yesterday.  They aren't a quilt shop, but they have a great fabrics, gifts, and clothes and offer sewing classes.  Although they have a lot of gifty things with fabric, they didn't sell quilts...until yesterday!  They are going to start selling my quilts in the shop, and will also refer customers to me for custom quilts.  YAY!  I am so excited!  They have a couple of quilts right now, and I'm hoping to get a few more made before their big holiday open house coming up in November.  Somebody pinch me!