my first attempt at quilting

I've got two baby showers coming up at work and both have got me thinking about great baby items I received when I was pregnant. I've noticed that people who don't have kids will inevitably give the "not really useful" items, like big puffy dresses, skull-crusher headbands, gimmicky stuff covered in glitter that doesn't serve a purpose. And hey - I'm guilty of it too! I've shown up to the showers with gifts of too-intricate clothing, scratchy blankets, and off-brand baby lotion. But no more. For these two upcoming showers, I want to put together a collection of the items I found the most useful - saline spray, boogie wipes, Boudreaux's Butt Paste. True story on that Butt Paste - we used it preventively every time we changed Britton's diaper, and she finally got her first diaper rash when she was thirteen months old, on our cruise. Because we forgot to pack the Butt Paste. I'd pay twice what it costs if I had to. But back to shower gifts - I also wanted to include a keepsake gift. So, after pow-wowing with Grandma, I decided that I would attempt making a quilt for each, and if all else failed I would end up with a cute cleaning rag.

I decided to go with the baby boy's quilt first since I knew the parents were decorating with a cowboy theme. The fabric yelled at me from across Hobby Lobby. The hub picked out the kid fabric. You want to know something funny about the kid fabric? I fell in love with it because it was fun, sweet, child-like, and cowboy themed. And it wasn't until I was cutting off the edge that I noticed the fabric had a name...... "Cowgirls." Looking back over the fabric I now see that all the kids are girls! And at that point I was over halfway finished with the quilt top. But hopefully the parents-to-be won't notice or care, since they are having a little cowboy.

My first step was putting together the pattern. I scoured internet photos before coming upon this pattern below, which was made all the easier because the blocks are bigger. See that picture of the pattern below? I actually made that by finding images of my fabric and putting the images on the paper in the order of the pattern. Because I don't have experience with what fabrics look good together, I needed a visual on what the different patterns would look like.



Here is my first nine square, the first of four.



The finished top. It still needs batting and a bottom (which will be the kid fabric) and, of course, the quilting. All will be accomplished this weekend when I sequester Grandma for a quilting lesson.



I don't have the quilting accessories, mainly because I don't like investing in a hobby unless I'm going to stick with it. And since I'm only on my first quilt, no need to max out the credit card at Joann's quite yet. So, I ran into needing a straight edge, but we don't have one. So I marked my 4-inch measurement on each side of this old license plate, lined it up with my fabric, and marked my line. It worked fine, but I don't recommend it for complete accuracy!