Second Boy Quilt Finished

The pile of scraps

Last fall, I finished a baby quilt for a Starbucks employee. For the second boy quilt, that I planned to make for another Starbucks mom's son, I pulled all the scraps form that first baby quilt. 

The "trimmings" from a previous project

I placed the pieced leftover sections on the design wall. The grand daughters were over. I asked them to help me fill in the spaces. I thought that they would build designs. Interestingly, they would put pieces next to other pieces and create chains! 

Sewing some sections

As a first step, I decided to fill in the areas that were open to right angles. This meant I did a little ripping; but, it wasn't much. The oldest granddaughter, Miss K, stitched some of the pieces together. 

Growing the sections

Once, I had a partial section together, Miss K understood what I was doing. She then thought the process was interesting! We spent some time talking about how to "sprinkle" in some of the small pieces so the overall design would be pleasing to the eye.

More sections pieced together

I asked Miss K if she could see a kid playing with a car, truck or airplane using the yellow sections as runways and the white sections as roadways. She thought I was funny.

Adding some "water"

I had a chunk of blue. I thought that would make a good ocean. There are other smaller pieces of this fabric in the blocks that could represent rivers or lakes.

More auditioning of bit placement

I was careful to make this quilt the same size as the previous quilt. We auditioned adding other fabric to the mix to "grow" the top. In the end, we only added the navy blue flannel. I had purchased a couple fat quarters last summer of it. I used about half of a fat quarter. We decided that the checked fabric would make a good binding.

Finished top

Sometimes, I turned a section a quarter turn because I needed the length of it rather than the width. As I worked, the pile of scraps slowly dwindled. When I had the top pieced, I had so few scraps left! 

The leftover scraps

For the backing, I selected some yardage I purchased at the beginning of the summer. I layered and pin basted the project. I quilted in the ditch with Superior's monopoly thread.

View of the walking foot quilting

 For the remaining quilting, I used the same red thread that I had with the other boy quilt.

A few free motion stars

Then I quilted with a combination of serpentine stitch rows and straight stitch rows in the long sections of the quilt. I free motioned quilted around the words in one print and around the dinosaurs in the other print. I stitched on the printed lines of the lined fabrics. In the small sections, I free motioned some stars.

Another view of the quilting

I added the binding and the label. I had another finish! Cynthia over at Oh Scrap/Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework definitely inspired me as I was stitching scraps together. It was also a good practice for improv quilting. 

View of the back

I used three yards of fabric in this project which brings the total of fabric used from my stash to 20 and one quarter yards! 

Label

Finishing this quilt was goal number one on my October list.

Finished front

I photographed both boy quilts together. I can picture two boys on the quilts watching a movie or playing a game. These will be gifted next month. That mama is going to be so surprised!

The two quilts together