Every now and then I like to make a quilt, and I try to sew one for all friends who become parents for the first time. If possible, I like to connect the theme of the quilt to what they like, or something with a story attached to it. This particular quilt was made for two of my best friends and their baby, and when they told me they were expecting I immediately knew it had to be a ladybug themed blanket. I will not go into the full story here as it is not mine to share, but it was equally nerdy and endearing.

I started the idea of the quilt while my friend was still pregnant, but in between moving house, starting a new life in a new city and a head that could just for the moment not deal with designing a quilt block with a ladybug in it, the quilt was not finished before the baby was born, but I set myself the goal to finish it before their first birthday. To make my life a little easier, I reverse engineered the ladybug blocks from a patchwork block I found on the internet, and therefore I will not share a full tutorial on it. I made 8 of them, and they look like this:

I made four lighter and four darker ones, because that is what I still had in my stash, and used all kinds of green scraps for the background blocks. Once I figured out how to do the blocks and the rest, the quilt came together quite fast. The ladybug blocks have a lot of seams, and therefore were not completely flat, which caused the rest of the quilt top to also deform a little. I decided not to worry about it too much, because the batting in the quilt probably could correct for that later on (it did for the most part). To be honest, I really like quilting, but I will not fuss endlessly over things not being completely flat or not lining up perfectly. As long as it’s half decent looking, I am happy.

For the backside I found a fabric with a photographic grassy print, which I thought was very appropriate for the quilt. I used a polyester batting and quilted the blanket on the stitch lines between the blocks. The edge was made in the same fabric as the back. I think it turned out pretty good, and I hope the almost-todler by now will enjoy it for many years to come!