Wee Wander quilts

I first heard about the Wee Wander Collection by Sarah Jane Studios way back in Spring and was immediately smitten. The horse fabrics were enough to convince me that I needed to get my hands on some for one little horse lover currently residing in my house. In addition, the bright colors and other playful characters (there are fireflies and teeny footprints for goodness sake) made the purchase obviously necessary. 

I searched locally and came up with naught. I searched the internet and couldn't quite find what I was looking for, until I stumbled upon an Etsy vendor who was selling all 21 prints in a fat quarter bundle: perfect. I got both sets of the collection: Twilight and Sunrise. I love how these two seemingly different (at least to me) colors blend so well together.

Initially, I was hesitant to cut into the fabric. It looked so perfect just as it was and I was afraid I would somehow ruin it.  But I knew that I couldn't justify purchasing the fabric without actually doing something to it so I began the process of finding out what type of quilt I wanted to make.

My sewing machine and I are still getting to know each other and I am very much a beginner when it comes to machine sewing so I wanted to do something that wasn't too technical. I settled on a subway tile inspired design making the rectangles 7 1/2 inches by 4 1/2 inches.  This size was long enough and wide enough to avoid fussy cutting but still keep the integrity of the larger prints (and without chopping off too many animal heads).

One of the highlights for my little Wookie (the intended recipient) is that one of the animals featured is a little bunny that bears a striking resemblance to her Cuniculus (rabbit in Latin, Husband's a Classicist, what can I say? and yes, she almost pronounces it correctly).

Once cut into tiles, I organized the rows in a sort of ombre inspired fashion starting with the darker blues and turquoises fading into the white and back out with the oranges and pinks. For the backing I used a white sheet that we had on hand and made the binding from some of the leftover scraps.

I had quite a bit of leftover "scraps" and figured I had enough to possibly make another (smaller) blanket for Nins. When gathered together most of the scraps were about 4 inch squares so I cut them all to the same size and started chain-piecing. I chose to use a no-binding method for this quilt, partly because I didn't have enough fabric and partly for trying something new. For the backing, I used (yet) another sheet.

I love how both these blankets turned out and am excited to use my sewing machine for more quilty projects in the future.