Mike’s cousin had another baby this year, so I wanted to make a quilt for her second baby (here is the quilt I made for her first child). One of the things I didn’t like about the first quilt was how muted and subdued the colors were. I like quilts with bright colors better, so this time I tried to be more adventurous with my fabric selections.

Closeup of some of the fabric.

One cool thing is that I’ve been collecting fabrics over the past year since I started quilting, so I was able to use them for this project. The pink striped fabric I got at a garage sale (!), the yellow fabric I stole from my mom’s collection, and the purple fabric was left over from Scarlett’s quilt.

I used the Rail Fence pattern from Quilts for Baby: Easy As ABC by Ursula Reikes. Here is what the squares looked like once they were all put together:

Quilt using the Rail Fence pattern.

I love how bright it is!! Next, I added the inner and outer borders. The inner border was made using fabric left over from Mikey 3’s quilt.

Closeup of the quilt after adding the borders and making the quilt sandwich.

This time I planned on machine quilting more intricate pattern than I’m used to, so I decided to baste the quilt with thread rather than safety pins like I usually do. Basting keeps the layers straight while you quilt it. Basting with thread is better when you plan on machine quilting, that way there are no safety pins to avoid that can break the machine’s needle. I used a dark thread that would be easy to see so I could pick them out later. Then, I quilted along the purple lines:

Closeup of the quilting and basting.

In the past I have quilted in a grid, but with Mikey 3’s quilt I started quilting along the pattern, since I felt a grid would take away from the overall design. I felt the same about this quilt, so I chose to quilt in a zig-zag pattern that followed the design. I think it turned out well.

Here I am working on the last step, binding.

The binding is the same fabric I used for the inner border. The backing was pink striped fabric I’ve had FOREVER, and a pink flowered pattern I picked up in the scraps bin at Joann’s (I LOVE the scraps bin!!)

Final product

Hope baby and mama like it!