Soft colours first bed size quilt

I often feel I don't use many soft quiet colours in my quilt designs, so it has been a bit of a challenge to make a quilt with really gentle colours for a little girl. This quilt has been commissioned as a Christmas present and the request was for a shabby chic, washed and worn look. Some baby clothes were to to included too. 

These are the fabrics used so far, I bought them from a lovely French fabric stall at the Festival of Quilts this year and added other fat quarters from my stock.

Shabby Chic fabrics

The design is simply 3" squares but I have broken up some of the squares into tiny log cabins, quarter squares and little bow ties too. I hope this adds to the vintage style of the quilt.....

Inset squares by Green Star Quilts

The old gold fabric I chose to stop the quilt looking too pink and sugary.The family sent a tiny pair of scratch mittens with a Manchester United football club logo on them, which goes suprising well with the over all look! 

Detail of Vintage Look quilt by Green Star Quilts

The number of squares used added up to 143 using about 15 different fabric and lots of scraps from my very extensive stash.... hummm note to self....must make more scrap quilts.... I really enjoyed fiddling around making tiny log cabin blocks on a wet Sunday afternnon....

Detail of Vintage Look quilt by Green Star Quilts

Here is the top of the quilt finished and ready for quilting, there is a row missing from the bottom of the quilt which I added later to make the length right:

 Vintage Look quilt top by Green Star Quilts

The cream coloured American Quilter's calico has been used for the bottom strip and will have the baby's name appliqued on it after the quilting is finished. I love this calico which is so soft and lovely to handle. I buy it from The Fabric Guild, which is a wonderful company with a good mail order facility. I have added a link for you to visit them here.

Detail of Vintage Look quilt by Green Star Quilts

Now the quilt is all ready to quilt. The wadding is Super Soft Cotton by Sew Simple, also bought from The Fabric Guild and I am really pleased with the way it drapes, it is so very soft and stitches like a dream. The backing is simple, using the calico again.The quilt is nearly finished and I will show you it completed next week.

This week I have used a larger size for the photos, do you think it is better and easier to see the details? Do let me know! Taking photos at this time of the year in the UK is so difficult. There may good be natural light oportunities at about 10am until 12 noon and then it gets darker so quickly. If it is a rainy day things become even more difficult! The last photo was taken in electric light and the whites always look yellow! Does anyone else have this problem? How do you light your quilts for photos? 

I am going to try some natural daylight bulbs for the lighting next time and hope to have really good photos of the finished quilt for you soon,

Hope you all have a lovely weekend,

Kind regards,

Sue