Baby Quilt Friday!: Fast Asleep on Cloud Nine

Welcome back to baby-quilt Friday! This week I'm highlighting the third baby quilt from my book (but actually, it's a box), The Little Box of Baby Quilts. This one's called "Fast Asleep on Cloud Nine."

From The Little Box of Baby Quilts, copyright 2007 Jenny Wilding Cardon/
That Patchwork Place. Machine quilted by Cheryl Brown. 

The inspiration for this quilt came easy. One morning I watched a sleepy baby Jack snuggle up under a blanket on our bed, sigh a little baby sigh, and drift off to dream. I wished for a little bed of clouds for him to dream on. I sat at the kitchen table with my graph paper and colored pencils to sketch out a quilted interpretation of that little moment.

I ended up drawing a design that was completely different from the quilt above. And I really liked what I had drawn, too. But here's the thing. When I started trying to figure out how to translate my drawing into fabric, I COULD NOT do it. The math just didn't add up. I had drawn a quilt that was mathematically impossible to stitch. Anybody else ever had this happen? Please say yes.

(I flunked geometry in junior high, you know. It's one of my deepest, darkest secrets. I really, really hate math. But it's true what they say--later in life, you just might actually use the math you learned in school. I should have paid more attention, tried harder. Slap on wrist.)

Anyhoo, I tweaked the design again and again. Never worked out. In fact, somehow I kept making it more complicated. I took a deep breath and told myself to try again. And this time, KEEP IT SIMPLE. I stuck with just two colors, and used only super-simple squares and rectangles. The quilt above is the result of that paring down.

The wonderfully kind and talented editorial director at Martingale & Company showed me a photo of this quilt after the professional shot was taken. She asked if I had meant to create the circular shape that links the four corner blocks together. (Stare at the quilt photo for just a moment, and you'll see it, too.) I told her, "Of course I meant to do that!"

I lied.

Funny no matter how well you plan out your quilts, they always have a sassy mind of their own, don't they?

This quilt was a favorite of several of my family members. But when my then 41-year-old sister, newly married, found out she was pregnant with her first child, I knew exactly where this quilt would land. It's now with my niece, beautiful Willa, who just turned a year old. I hope she'll grow to love it, just as I love her.

You can view more quilts from the "little box" here, watch a video about it here, and read more about the quilts here.

Next week is Jack's favorite quilt out of the whole bunch of 20, called "Inch by Inch." Hope to see you back here next Friday!