I finished this quilt in August of last year, and was reminded of it today when I read Laura's post over at thimble about her alphabet quilt - she used the same vintage insipred alphabet fabric by Moda!
I made this quilt for a friend's baby for her christening. When I started out, I had no idea what kind of a quilt I would make, not even when I saw this fabric. All I knew was that I loved the fabric. When I got it, I went through my stash and took out some fabrics I had, to try and design the quil,t but I did not like anything I came up with. I did not want it to be too busy, but I also did not want it to be too white, including only the letters of the baby's name. I really only wanted two other colors in the quilt, two that stood out in the letters/pictures - vintage blue and red. So I drove all the way to Anaheim, to M&L fabric store and picked out the rest of the fabrics (and much more, but that's another story).
The final design included squares from the main fabric and muslin and strips of red and blue checked fabrics for the "frame" around the letters. The smaller pictures (cut out from the same alphabet fabric, only without the letters) and the smaller red and blue squares were appliqued on muslin squares and then quilted around. The rest was quilted in the groove and around the letters. The background fabric was a funky robots fabric with the same basic colors - here are a few more pictures of the quilt.
This is the fabric I used for the letters and the smaller pictures. I saw it initially at equilter.com, but finally bought it from Bear Paw Quilt Co because it was considerably cheaper. However, I almost did not buy it from them because their website is really not user friendly, and I just don't have patience to try and figure out where the shopping cart went (that was actually the problem - after I selected the amount of fabric I needed I could not get back to my shopping cart!). Then I decided to call them and see if I can order over the phone - I was amazed at how nice the lady I talked to was!. I usually don't like to buy stuff blindly, but she was so helpful that I asked her to suggest muslin that would go with this fabric, considering color and fabric thickness. And she did a great job! The fabrics matched almost perfectly. I know I will but from them again, but over the phone, not through their website.