Fabric play just got more fun! This time instead of yardage or fat quarters, I pulled out a layer cake to bring this Pink Lemonade baby girl quilt to life featuring Sugar Cone!
Normally, my quilty projects are inspired by quilts that I want to make. But every now and then it’s the fabric that sparks my inspriation.
Today I’m sharing the inspiration behind this latest version, and all the quilty decisions I made along the way!
The Pink Lemonade Quilt Pattern is ready for instant download.
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Inspiration behind the quilt
You know the special place the Pink Lemonade quilt holds in my heart. And while you might think it brings sadness to me when I revisit it, it’s quite the opposite. I see it as an opportunity to spread joy and comfort, and to celebrate new beginnings.
So, when I stumbled upon this adorable straw print by Kimberly Knight, I instantly knew I wanted to make a new Pink Lemonade quilt.
What drew me in was the fun colourway.
The original Pink Lemonade Quilt featured pink, white, and a pop of bright yellow. It was one of the cheeriest quilts I’d made up to that point and the straw print had me reminiscing about the fun it was to stitch with those colours.
The straws also seemed apropos for the quilt theme and who doesn’t remember the fun of drinking with a straw? I particularly loved the curly cue ones where I could watch the liquid swirl up and down – ha!
Layer Cake Potential
So, that was the starting point. I then discovered the Sugar Cone collection came in a layer cake and, since I’d never worked with a layer cake, I got curious and decided to pop it in my cart. To ground everything and balance out the prints, I added in some speckled yardage in pink and grello. The latter is not a perfect match with the sunny yellow of the straw print, but it does coordinate with other colours in the collection. I mention that in case you’re looking to bring some in and want it all to match.
I found myself in a quilty pickle!
For some reason, I thought I could use the layer cake for all of my Pink Lemonade quilt blocks, and that wasn’t the case – ha!
Geez, you’d think since I designed the pattern I’d know this 😉 But, I didn’t double-check my starting square sizes, and I could only make it work for the hourglass blocks. That’s ok, as I had the yardage to see me through.
In the end, it probably worked out the best, as it meant I used the prints for all the hourglass blocks and then kept the geese blocks to the pop of grello. This creates a more harmonious quilt and allows the prints to pop. I think it would have felt overwhelming if I’d featured a print in every single block.
Morale of the story – sometimes things work out as they should 😊
Learn how to trim hourglass quilt blocks in 5 easy steps.
A note on the fabric prints
Since I wanted the colourway to be mainly pink and yellow, I opted to pull out all of the pink prints from the Sugar Cone collection. There’re quite a few, so I was able to make it work for this baby quilt.
The remaining layer cake got used up in this Lunar Eclipse quilt, so none of it went to waste 😉
Quilting direction
I had lots of ideas swirling around in my head about how to quilt her up. Initially, I was going to go with straight-line quilting, then I thought point-to-point, and then I wound up doing a cross-hatch!
Funnily, cross-hatch wasn’t even on my radar until I was done basting her, and thought it would be a good place to start.
It also meant I didn’t need to mark her up that much. Sometimes the path of least resistance is the one to take – ha!
In all seriousness, it wasn’t just my laziness that contributed to the decision, it had been a while since I featured cross-hatch quilting, and I was curious to see how it would look in this baby quilt.
For more cross-hatch quilting inspiration, check out:
Since I love adding texture to my quilts, I was drawn to this 40wt grello Aurifil Thread. I’ve lost count of how many projects I’ve featured this colour in, but it’s definitely an all-time fave and a must in my thread stash.
Binding
If you’re a newsletter subscriber (you can sign up here!), then you already know the quilty pickle I was in as it relates to my binding decision. My original plan was to feature this cherry print as the binding. I even already had the binding cut, stitched and ready to attach.
But then I ended up making the Lunar Eclipse quilt with the remnants of the layer cake and speckled yardage, and I’d actually quilted that one before this one.
I was super tempted to feature the cherry print binding on the Lunar Eclipse quilt, but I didn’t have enough to bind both quilts. A decision needed to be made.
My hubz recommended I just buy more fabric – ha! But I tend to be a little more resourceful and decided to make it work with what I had on hand.
Ultimately, I decided to go with my original plan and feature the cherry print on the Pink Lemonade quilt. It’s a good thing that’s the direction I ended up going in, as I wouldn’t have had enough to make it work on the Lunar Eclipse quilt.
Materials Featured
Here’s everything I used to bring this baby girl Pink Lemonade Quilt to life:
- Pink Lemonade Quilt Pattern – baby size
- Sugar Cone Layer cake
- Speckled Yellow print
- Speckled Pink background print
- Straw print backing
- Batting
- Sewing Machine
- Sewing machine needles
- 50wt thread for piecing
- 40wt thread of machine quilting
- Pearl cotton thread for big stitch hand binding
- Rotary cutter
- Cutting mat
- Ruler
- Ruler
- Iron
- Wool pressing mat
- Fine mist spray bottle
- Embroidery scissors
- Sit ‘n Sew Pin cushion
- Embroidery needle
- Leather thimble
- Finger thimbles – I use the large on my thumb and the medium on my index finger
- Erasable marking tool
- Hera marker
- Walking foot
- Guide bar
For more quilty inspiration, check out:
This one shouldn’t have taken me as long as she did to bring to life, but other projects got in the way of making that happen. The good news is that I didn’t forget about her, and I’m so happy to see her quilted up!
I hope this gives you the encouragement to dive into your work-in-progress pile and finish up one of your quilty makes!
Get your Pink Lemonade Quilt Pattern in the shop.
Happy quilting!
xo
Shannon
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