Family of Baby Quilts

Happy Throwback Thursday! I'm starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for old quilt photos, but I do have some left for a few more posts. Today's quilts are three I made for one family--my niece's. She and her husband have a son and two daughters--our oldest great-nephew and great-nieces. Their son is 22 years old now (and has a son of his own), and their daughters are in college, so these quilts are probably used up (I hope). At the time I made these, I was working outside of home and had little time to quilt, so all are tied--the quickest way I knew at the time to make a baby quilt. I still have the plans (such as they are) for two of the quilts as well as some leftover fabrics (really!). So let's have a look. 

This is the quilt for baby I, made in 1996. I remember going to a big storewide sale for the fabric--so big that the store rented an empty store front next door for the sale. I knew I wanted to make something simple in just two contrasting colors. Please pardon really poor lighting. 

And the back, which is the light fabric from the front.

I have a planning sheet, which is pretty much incomprehensible to me now. I had two schemes based on color placement. Looks like I chose the one in the lower right.

 

These numbers don't add up for me right now. I guess if I really studied the plan for awhile, I'd figure out how big the patches were. Oh, well. In any event, the quilt got made. I'm thinking I was trying to decide how long to make the quilt, but my guess is that the whole thing was probably about 41 by 50 inches.

Here are the fabrics I have left in my drawer. I'm 100% sure that the light fabric is the one, and about 99% sure about the green. I tied the quilt with pearl cotton with what look like amazingly long ties. I hope they softened when it was washed. Isn't it interesting the pattern that shows up in a whole cloth back? These scratchy marks almost look like a floral when you see all the repeats from far in the photo of the back.

If you look at the quilt you can sort of see "I" in the design. I didn't plan that, but noticed it when it was finished. So when I's sister C was born, I thought I'd be clever and make a quilt with Cs in it for her first initial. I don't have a written plan for that one, but here it is.

Poor lighting, but no problem. I still have all of the fabrics so you can imagine it in all its vintage glory. Yipes! Here's the back, which is the same print as that tealish one on the front.

Here's a close-up. I'm still trying to figure out how I put the blocks together. It looks like maybe three squares and a long strip per block, but the Cs are staggered, so I'm not really sure how I joined them. 

Here are the fabrics from my drawer. I should probably try to use them up sometime, Ya' think?

What I remember about making this quilt is that I was frustrated when I bought the fabric because I wanted all big florals but just could not find a yellow one. I'm thinking this quilt is probably roughly the same size as the one I made for I. 

I was pretty proud of myself coming up with a quilt made of Cs (even if some were backwards), so when I found out another baby was coming, I planned to make another quilt with Baby's initial. Uh oh. When Baby was announced, her name started with G. I was stumped. Tessellating Gs were just beyond my designing ability. So I made a giant G and surrounded it with strips. Yeah, I'm not real proud of that, but at least there was no mistaking which quilt was hers.

The back:

I had two planning sheets for this one. 

I'm thinking that what happened with this quilt is that I made a plan and then went to the store and revised the plan based on the colors of fabrics I was able to find. It looks like I started with the G floral fabric as the focus to pick the other colors. I have a few of these left.

But not the floral or the turquoise. I know the turquoise ended up in some landscape quilts over the years. The white background was a tone on tone print--you know, the kind with the prints on muslin-like fabric. Again, the final size is a mystery as I have several numbers on my plan. 

I like to think--well, I hope--I've come a long way in designing and planning colors/patterns since I made these quilts. But I'm sure the babies did not mind my choices. I haven't made a tied quilt in a long time. I do know they were puffy and cozy with their polyester battings. I still have some tied quilts at home that have held up well over the years. These days I would quilt these kinds of quilts by machine, but tying is still a good option when you're short on time.

I'm linking up today with Sandra at mmm! quilts for Throwback Thursday. If you have some oldies from your pre-blogging days, be sure to go there and link up. It's fun to look back!