Quilt for Baby Kaiya

There's a story behind this fabric- I bought it about 3-4 years ago and made a wrap skirt. I didn't prewash the fabric and it shrank. I've been saving it because I just love this fabric combination. Originally I had a different quilt in mind for baby Kaiya but it just didn't feel right. I went back and forth on the idea of using the skirt and I finally took it apart stitch by stitch. The problem was that I didn't have very much of the fabric. I came up with a design that used every inch. Literally. I added the red stripe with the baby's name and appliqued the flowers to make it look more cohesive. I love how this project forced me to be more creative.

The quilt design just about killed me. It's hard to come up with a design when you have two very different motifs in the quilt top. I wanted something angular, like concentric squares but how would that translate to the name stripe, which is not angular at all? I ended up using a meandering design that crossed the borders of the squares and then did some free form boxes in the name stripe. I marked the quilt top with a washable crayola marker again and it washed out fine. That makes me so nervous! Near Kaiya's name I embroidered a little "love, nikki" in red. If you don't know what it is it would be hard to see it. But I know it's there.