babies everywhere!

I'm in my late 20's, which seems to be the time when everyone I know is either getting married or having babies. Which means that I've been making lots of baby quilts in the past few years. This year I've already made 5. The first one finished in 2009 was ABQ (all but quilting) done as of 12/31/2008. I knew the baby would be a girl, but I wanted to make a quilt that was still neutral, and had a somewhat sophisticated color palette, as the parents are lifelong New Yorkers.
The pattern is called "Bundle of Joy" and it's from one of Ursula Reike's books. The cream colored fabric has adorable little bugs on it.

The next quilt was also ABQ as of last year. I taught myself to free-motion quilt in January, and this was the first quilt I stippled. I made it with some leftovers from another quilt and a pack of charm squares. I originally didn't know who it would be for, and less than a week after I finished it my husband got an email from his cousin announcing the birth of his son. Voila! I put the quilt in a box, got a card, and sent it off.
I just made up the pattern as I went along. As you can tell it was not very complicated! Sometimes I like easy projects--just to make something fun.

Also in January I started and completed a quilt for my former roommate. She knew she was having a girl but didn't want something too "prissy". So I found the "Yard Sale" pattern in Valori Wells' book and modified it a bit to be baby size.

As you can tell, my husband is very supportive of my hobby. Those are his shoes.

This pink quilt was also ABQ as of last year. I made it with a bunch of fabrics that my friend didn't want. She used to belong to a Japanese fabrics club (where you get a packet each month) and she has a strange aversion to fabric with people in it. So she gave me all her fabrics with people in them! I needed a quick project to keep me busy one day last fall, and I came up with this. I think it's really cute. I will probably donate this one to charity, as I don't know anyone having girls right now.

Finally, there is the wonky log cabin I made for my choir director. Well, not actually my choir director--his wife is the one having the baby, but you get the idea. They know it's a boy, but I figured even if not, this is a pretty gender-neutral quilt. I had a lot of fun with this quilt. It was for Project Improv, which happened to start right after I read "Liberated Quiltmaking" by Gwen Marston. After I made a block for Project Improv I wanted to continue, and this quilt was born. It was really fun and I like the way it turned out.

Here's another picture of the detail:

I hope they like it!

So, that's the round up of what I've done so far this year. April's been a slow month on completing things. I was getting ready for Easter, and I just had other priorities. Hopefully I'll be able to get some quilting time in this Thursday with the quilt guild ladies.