Here it is – my first organic baby quilt! This great quilt has certified 100% organic cotton fabrics in an unbleached, natural cotton and a checked homespun. The batting is an environmentally friendly batting made from fast growing plantation trees that are broken down in a green facility and spun into cellulose fibers. The batting is biodegradable, hypo-allergenic, and fire retardant without the use of harsh chemicals! The fire retardant properties are due to the natural way the plantation trees grow and contain silica in their pulp. This silica in turn allows the batting to be naturally fire retardant!
When I was designing this quilt, I had a hard time trying to come up with a pattern that would suit a two toned quilt. I was playing around in my EQ6 (electric quilt 6 software) and saw the pineapple blocks. I had never done a pineapple block but have always wanted to. When I laid it all out and added the two colors, I loved it! I really like the depth that the two tones give the quilt – almost a 3D quality.
The best way to do this quilt block was to print paper foundations for each of the pineapple blocks and piece it that way (highly recommend Carol Doak’s paper-piecing foundation paper and Add-a-Quarter rulers). I was afraid that if I tried to strip piece this together, the blocks might start to twist and spin instead of lining up nicely.
So, once this was all settled, I got started cutting out the pieces and putting this quilt together. I must say, if I had realized that one baby quilt has over 350 pieces, I may have re-thought the design!
You can see at the left a shot of the foundations in progress. I believe I am putting on the corner pieces of the blocks in this shot.
Thirty hours later, this quilt is now finished! I was so excited to get it done as I have been wanting to start an organics line of baby quilts and I think this gets the line off to a wonderful start! Vermont Hand Crafters, a craft group I belong to, is filming a segment for Across the Fence, a show about local products on WCAX Channel 3. They asked me for a sample of my work and were excited when I gave them this quilt to put on the air. If you have access to Channel 3, please watch on 11/17 from 12:10 to 12:30 EST.











