Pinwheel Baby Quilt

Pinwheel Baby Quilt | Chantilly + Kona Snow | 44"x52"

I had actually made another quilt top for this particular baby, but it turned out a little too big. Plus, I ended up wanting to keep it for myself! I had limited time to finish a new quilt, so I raced to my local quilt shop in hopes that I would find a cute precut that I could make a quick quilt with. Two charm packs of Chantilly for $6.99 and a coordinating backing fabric also in store? That'll work!

The pattern is Pinwheel Baby Quilt by Jodi Nelson and it is available for free at Moda Bake Shop. I used this pattern as inspiration for a pillow I made a few months ago. It is really quick project (in terms of making quilts!) and the prairie points really kick up the specialness a notch! The original pattern only calls for one charm pack, but I excluded all the purple and cream prints and went with a 4x5 arrangement rather than a 3x4 arrangement. I like to stick close to 38"x52" for baby quilts, so it is useful for a longer period of time.

The pattern calls for half-square triangles constructed with triangles, but I used the sandwich method. The Juki TL-2010 came with a compensating foot that can be used as a 1/4" foot, but the heavy-duty built-in guide isn't ideal for my favorite HST method. I bought the Janome 1/4" Seam Foot with Edge guide and it works perfectly with my Juki. The guide is held on by a super tiny screw, so it is removable.

One thing that my life harder on the aforementioned pillow, was that I overlapped the prairie points on the corners. The corner points should actually lay adjacent so that there isn't a stubborn bulky spot. McCall's tutorial on prairie points helped me out with this project.

I used my standard baby quilt backing template, plus my blank pages... My First Alphabet pattern. The top section is Wall Flowers Brook Aqua from Chantilly by Lauren & Jessi Jung for Moda

Stipple in Aurifil 40wt Dove. I thought I could quilt the whole thing in one go and sneak to the pinwheels through the prairie point intersections, but that didn't work out very well at all! I ended up quilting the middle and then rolled it back up on the frame to quilt the borders.

Pin Dot from Ruby by Bonnie and Camille. Oh my goodness, I have been saving that fabric since 2012 for binding another quilt. But I was running out of time and it matched well, so I went with it! I am guessing it won't be hard to find another red pin dot fabric!

I will be linking up with Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, Fabric Frenzy Friday at Fort Worth Fabric Studio, Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday (which is being hosted at Quilt Matters this week) and  Show off Saturday at the Sew Can She blog.