A friend is having a baby, so I must make a quilt for the new soon-to-be “Bean.”  Bean is a boy, and I luckily just got a perfect fabric set to make him a quilt.  So, I thought I would take this opportunity to share a little about my creative process.

First, here is the fabric:

Once I have the fabric, I decide what type of pattern and method I want to use.  For a baby quilt, a very simple patchwork with squares is best.  I plan on using 3″ squares using paper-piecing to ensure that I have nice, even squares.  Now comes the math.  A standard crib quilt is 52″ X 34″ but since I am using units of three, I had to increase the size to 57″ X 36″.  That means it will be 19 rows long, and 12 columns wide, which translates into 228 squares.

Now it is time to play with the layout.  I made a table in Word that was 19 X 12 and colored in the squares to get an idea of how the colors would play off of each other.  Here it is:

The initial pattern

The next step is finding out how many squares I will need of each color to make sure that I have enough fabric to complete the quilt.  The break down is: White- 114, Small Blue- 7, Small Orange- 7, Small Green- 7, Large Blue- 31, Large Orange- 31, Large Green- 31 (small and large indicates the smaller or larger cuts of fabric).   Based on these numbers, I am fairly certain I am going to need more of the plain, white fabric, but that is easy to acquire.

The final step in the design process will be to layout the 3″ paper squares on the fabric to confirm that I have enough fabric to do the pattern as envisioned.  If not, I will go on a fabric hunt to fill in the pieces!

I will start this quilt as soon as the Red Riding Hood one is done.