Twilight and Dawn: Two Finished Quilts

A co-worker is expecting twin girls in early October and I knew just the fabric to pull from my stash- Wee Wander by Sarah Jane for Michael Miller. I scooped up a fat eighth bundle of this precious line when it came out and had it shipped (free!) to an American address where my aunt was staying. It meant a long wait for it to come and then I didn't use for a while...until now.

I wanted the quilts to be an obvious pair but not match. I decided to supplement my Wee Wander with some other prints (some Pearl Bracelets, some Cotton + Steel basics and some other Lizzy House prints that seemed just right) to make a Wonky Star quilt using the free tutorial from Owen's Olivia. The mom said the nursery is mostly white with "pops of colour" so I knew this would work well.

The quilts are named Twilight (for the blue, cool-coloured one) and Dawn (for the pinkish, warm-coloured one). Here they are:

Thank goodness my husband's best friend was staying for the weekend. Nothing says "boys weekend" like being forced to hold up quilts. :)

Twilight is, I think, my favourite of the two. The turquoise, teal, mint green and blue is totally my jam. The supplementary fabrics in the one are a Cotton+Steel with a gold plus in it, an Art Gallery Squared Elements print and a Pearl Bracelets. I think it looks cohesive yet playful.

I tried whenever it made sense to fussy cut the centres. Like this sweet horse, or those children playing in the bottom left of this picture.

Dawn is also bright and playful. Here I added some Lizzy House Jewels I've had forever, as well as a Lizzy House Constellations in Peach from her latest Natural History Line, plus one star from Heather Bailey's True Colours line.

You can see more fussy cutting evident here. Also, this shows the quilting I did. I used straight-line quilting on either side of each seam. Then I quilted an echo pattern around the inside of each star.

The backs are pretty wild. I basically emptied my scraps and stash to find bits to make this wild pieced backing for each one. They are very bright and busy and I have to say I sort of love them! It also allowed me to include the fat eighth of the large border print (in approximately the centre of each back) that wouldn't have worked chopped up into a wonky star.

From the back you can see the outline quilting on the inside border of each star. That took awhile but I like the effect very much.

I ended up binding each quilt in a Kona solid from my stash (Twilight with Pool and Dawn with Bright Pink). I like the calmer binding since the quilts themselves (especially from the back!) are quite visually busy.

I hope the mom loves them. Actually, I hope she cries. :)

And though I thought these were the last baby quilts in my future, I just found out that my husband's sister is expecting in March and (unlike with their first) they are going to find out the baby's sex so I have at least one more baby quilt in my future!