Ladybug Quilt

I finished my niece's quilt yesterday.   The theme of her nursery is ladybugs using a black, white, and red color scheme.  When my sister-in-law told me the nursery theme, I immediately had an idea.   Brenna really liked this.   I thought I could do better.  I wanted to do vertical columns of black and white fabrics with ladybugs walking across them.  I wanted a more modern look for the quilt.  I wanted the fabrics to match up at odd angles.  Surfing blogs I came across the type of quilt I had in my mind.   I figured out the name and publisher of it.  The book is called Denyse Schmidt Quilts.   I used the pattern called Hop, Skip, and Jump.  I modified the quilt slightly.   I wanted everything to be on a smaller scale since it was going to be a wall hanging.  The book recommended to enlarge the pattern template by 400%.  I enlarged mine by 200%.   I also added black lattice between the columns instead of sewing the column one to another.  I went to my local Joanns to find the fabrics.  

Constructing the quilt was not hard.   I stacked my seven fabrics on top of one another, pinned the stack to keep it from moving and traced my template piece on the top fabric.   I used my fabric scissors to cut the pieces.  Denyse Schmidt has some good suggestions for piecing and keeping your fabrics correct directionally in the book.   Once the cutting was done the sewing went very quickly.    

Here is it once the columns are done. 

 I used 7 different black/white fabrics and a solid white cotton.  I tried to vary the scale of the prints.  I also wanted most of them read as black.  One print reads more white, but it blends with the others.   After I completed this stage I started on the ladybugs.  

I made the decision to use five ladybugs because seven seemed too many.  I wanted to use an odd number.  Using what I know about design from photography, I strategically placed them in a couple of non symmetric triangles.   I used a circle cutter to cut a pattern from card stock so I could play with size and placement.   I used a red fabric for my ladybugs.   I ironed Wonder Under onto the backside of my red fabric.   Then, I traced the circle pattern and cut.  After cutting all the circles, I went back and cut out a small wedge on one side.  I planned to add black fabric in this space to give the look of wings.   I added the ladybug spots by cutting the circles out of the black and white polka dot fabric.  I ironed Wonder Under to the backside of the black and white polka dot fabric prior to cutting.  This is what my scrap of fabric looked like before cutting out the white circles:

I ironed them on the red ladybug body and used my zigzag stitch set to the very short stitch length to sew around them.  

I added Wonder Under to the back side of my black fabric so I could trace and cut out the negative space for the wings and the head.  For the heads, I eyeballed a crescent and cut it.   Next, I pinned the ladybugs to the quilt to take another look at placement before ironing them down. 

Since, I was happy with the placement, I headed over the ironing board.  I peeled the backing fabric off the red fabric circles and ironed them on.   Next, I repeated the process with the black negative space and the head.  I zigzagged around the black parts first and then the red ones.   When I was finished it looked like this.

I made tabs and the binding from the black and white polka dotted print.   Now, I was ready to quilt.   I typically do the stitch in the ditch type quilting.   This time I decided that I wanted to try something different so I free motion quilted this one.   I didn't draw any designs, I just quilted random squiggles and loops.  When I finished, it looked like this:

I think she likes it.