Dr. Seuss/ Pinwheel Baby

First off, I'm happy to report another "UFO" completed!   I finished machine quilting my "Scrappy Star" baby quilt,  (finally) and it turned out quite well.

Machine quilting my Scrappy Star" baby quilt

There are 8 blue animal ark blocks which I fussy cut 5 1/2"square. I added 2" wide sashing strips and then trimmed all the finished blocks to 8 1/4 inches. The sawtooth star blocks were made from scraps of fabric from other baby quilts sewn together randomly, then cut into 4 1/2" squares for the centre of the blocks.  I added a 2" green inner border and then a 3" 'scrappy' border around the outside of the whole thing.  The binding is also the same green fabric as the inner border and sashing.  On the back there's a green and blue jungle animal print. The finished quilt measures 40"X 40".

I quilted it "in the ditch" on the blocks and did "free motion" quilting on the outer border in a butterfly/ scroll pattern.

Completed "Scrappy Star" baby quilt

I love this little quilt so much that I am keeping it myself! It is very unique since I didn't follow an existing pattern, I made it up from an idea in my own head.  I'm hoping that one day soon I will get to wrap my own little grandbaby up in it! :)

Next I decided I was going to make some pinwheel blocks, just because I have never made them. They are quite simple to make and one little secret to their success, I found,  is to press the seams OPEN so that there's not too many layers of seams in the middle of the completed block.

Starting my pinwheel blocks for my "Dr. Seuss" baby quilt

More pinwheel blocks

Fabric for the 6 inch squares and the inner border

I had a cute fat quarter with Dr. Seuss characters on it which I cut up into 6  7/8" squares to alternate with the pinwheel blocks for 4 rows of 4 blocks.

The red and blue 'Cat in the Hat' fat quarter,  I cut into strips along the rows of cats. Each strip had to be 2 7/8" wide to avoid cutting any parts of the cat's hat or bow tie off and those strips became the first border. 

The quilt top was only 28" square at this point, so I decided it needed another border to make it bigger. I was going to use the red checkered turtle fabric which I'd used in some of the pinwheel blocks, since there was enough left, but it just looked too busy. So it was time to make another trip to the quilt store to see what else might work....

(More about this work in progress to come!)