the josie quilt

I've been friends with Jen since we were neighbors in Lee Hall, our freshman year at Virginia Tech.  She and I both had roommates with our same name, and it turned out we both were from Virginia Beach.  Like that, a friendship was born!  She now lives in the same town as Jessica, and just had her third baby (and first girl!), Josie.  I've made Jen a couple of family lap quilts, so a baby quilt was definitely in order.  I asked Jen for some guidance, and she sent a Pinterest board in my direction - navy, coral/salmon, gold, and arrows.  I started with my backing fabric (from Spoonflower), and made up the rest as I went along!

The backing is peeking through the white background of the front!

The arrows are random selections of various Kona fabrics - Navy, Pewter, Ice Frappe, Ice Peach, Peach, and a gold floral fabric from Cloud9 from Joanns.  I found a tutorial online on making arrows, and I just kept making them until it looked like I had enough.  To give it interest, I switched up the direction of each arrow.

I could have done two rows of arrows - I seriously considered it - but in the end, I was intrigued about the white negative space created above the arrows.  I didn't want to leave it empty, and I've been doing a lot of embroidery lately.  We're fans of Kacey Musgraves over here, and her song lyrics popped into my head, so on the quilt they went!  I added a little heart at the end.

For quilting I went with a grid, about 1 inch apart, leaving a box around the embroidery.  I didn't want to stitch over the embroidery, and I liked the "frame" the box created.

Welcome to the world, Josie!  Congrats to Jen and Rusty on the arrival of their little girl!