Vanessa Sutton, January, Make a baby quilt

Hi! My name is Vanessa Sutton, and I'm lucky enough to be Nora's younger sister.  She's pretty much taught me everything I know, and I'm excited to be a part of this project!  I live in Pocatello, Idaho with my husband Trent, and our five children: Sterling(11), Sarah(9), Meg(7), Macie(5), and Luke(3).  My husband is a very deeply-rooted Idaho boy, and I foresee us being in Pocatello forever. 

In my former life I was a speech-language pathologist, but now I am loving being home with my kids.  I also love to run, bike, and swim - as much as I can possibly get away with - but not enough to ruin my marriage.

Gutting it out at a Marathon last fall.  

My husband Trent always jokes that Nora can talk pretty much anyone into doing pretty much anything - and have them feel great about it.  She really does have a special ability to connect with and relate to people, and help them to exceed what they are capable of.  I attribute all of my junior high social success to her teaching me a round-off backhandspring,

For my project in January, I made a baby quilt for my daughter Macie's kindergarten teacher.  She has been a wonderful and patient teacher for my somewhat less-than-academically-motivated daughter.  Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of her lovely teacher, or her new baby, but I do have a picture of the quilt:

This quilt is called a "Vintage Baby Quilt" and is one my very favorite to make.  As far as quilts go, it is almost embarrassing how easy it is.  When my kids were younger, I spent an insane amount of time quilting.  That has scaled back considerably due to other life events, but it is always fun to make a baby quilt.

For this project, I used a 45-inch (1 1/4 yard) piece of white fabric.  On it, I drew a grid of three inch squares using my quilting ruler and a mechanical pencil.  After that I took a coordinating piece of print fabric, and laid it print-side down on the floor.  I sprayed a layer of basting glue spray, and then laid down a 1 1/4 yard piece of cotton batting.  This was followed by more spray glue, and then the white fabric went on top - grid side up.

Anyone still awake?  Sorry for all of the quilting terminology.  I got so into the project, that I neglected to take pictures.  When the three layers were secure, I placed 2 1/2-inch fabric squares from various scraps I had (296 to be exact) on the top layer in the grid.  Some shuffling and moving around were needed to balance out the different colors and prints.  This quilt seems to look best with a LOT of variety in both colors and prints.

Once arranged, I sewed the fabric squares directly to the top layer of the quilt using a 1/4 inch seam.  First I sewed the rows horizontally, and then vertically.  Once the squares were sewn on, I sewed on a white binding around the edges and then washed and dried it.  That makes all the difference with this quilt.  It shrinks the cotton batting and gives it a cool, puckered look.

When the quilt was finished, I handed it off to a good friend who was visiting the kindergarten teacher for delivery.  As it is her first baby, I got the feeling she was pretty nervous about germs and small visitors.