A friend of mine just gave birth to a new bundle of joy. When I found out she was expecting a boy, I knew just what to do with a certain stack of Spectacle fabrics by Cotton & Steel.

A baby quilt! Yay!

The fabrics in this line are so carefree and fun: seals balancing balls, trikes and seagulls, boats and bees, peg people. It's a cacophony of commotion and adventure in bold primary colors - perfect for a baby boy!

I chose simple half rectangle triangles arranged with contrasting dark vs. light value to allow the colorful prints to carry the show. A generous sprinkling of solids creates a little visual space in this otherwise busy quilt.

I'm not much for primary colors myself, so this quilt wasn't totally making my heart sing until I added the quilting. Actually, quilting it - as in the action of implementing the design - was SO much fun.

At a recent quilting conference, I took a class on creating custom quilt designs that our longarm sewing machine can stitch computer-guided. The process was way easier than I expected. So, looking at this quilt top, I got the idea to turn one of my favorite prints into a quilting pattern! I designed four different peg people motifs to quilt in the low volume portions of the quilt. In the dark volume triangles, I created a simple straight-line zig zag. Both designs are able to be quilted across the quilt continuously, making for efficient work.

Watching this quilting come to life was so satisfying! I was sporting a goofy smile the whole time and even shared an Instagram video. I really don't think I've ever had so much fun quilting!