Abacus

A friend of mine from church is an expert seamstress with skill levels beyond anything I hope to achieve in the next decade. When she heard that I had started dabbling in the world of sewing, she was thrilled and has been showering me with encouragement ever since. A few weeks ago she brought me a "care package" full of goodies, not the least of which was a foot high stack of random charm squares. When I went through the stack, I was so excited to find more than two dozen pieces from Kate Spain's beautiful Central Park collection for Moda. I tried several different layouts before finally having a brainstorm one afternoon last weekend. The result is this baby quilt: Abacus.

The pattern is a modern take on a child's toy abacus.  Each charm square is a "bead" and the grey areas are densely quilted to show the sliding movement from left to right. The sashing is simple white muslin, and I added a quarter yard piece of Central Park to the back for a little extra color. The quilt is bound in a grey Sea Star print from Emily Herrick's Going Coastal collection for Michael Miller. I love that this quilt will not only make a wonderful blanket for my youngest daughter's pack-n-play crib, but that I can also use it as a math tool for teaching my older daughters about counting, adding, and subtraction.

I will be posting a tutorial for this quilt tomorrow. If any of you end up making something with it, please do let me know. I would love to see what you do with it! I'm hoping to post more tutorials in the next few months, so keep your eyes open...

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday, Sew & Tell Friday, and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.