I received the following email on February 12th and immediately decided I wanted to participate:

Here are the following details to participate in the Spring Fling Challenge:

A. Make an item to be listed in your shop that has a feel of "Spring" to it.

B. All Items should be listed by the 1st of March.

C. Include in the title listing : EtsyBABY Spring Fling Team Challenge.

D. Add the following tag to the listing: "Spring Fling"

E. A poll to vote for your favorite "Spring Fling" item will be available on March 3rd and will end on March 31st.
All Etsybaby members can vote just once.

D. The winner will be announced on April 1st and will be awarded 7 days of ad space on EtsyBABY.

Now, I just had to figure out what I wanted to make. I narrowed it down to either an appliqued onesie or a quilt. I finally decided a quilt would leave me with the most creative freedom.

I LOVE to make bright baby quilts so I started out with three different pieces of hand-dyed fabric and cut them into squares. Laid them on my design wall, figured out how I wanted them to look and sewed them together. Then I found this adorable black fabric with all these fun colored bugs on it for my border. Once I had the base, I decided to work on the actual design. At first I had this idea of having a drooping flower coming out of leaves with rain drops in one corner and bugs in another…I even had this all cut out and ready to go. Then I decided to change my flower into a larger fabric circle with loops of ribbon as the petals. Once these idea came to me, my entire design changed.

In the end, I created an amazingly fun baby quilt. There are five flowers appliqued on: a spiral, a ribbon loop flower, a thicker spiral, circles, and circles within circles. I layered different green fabrics to create dimension on the stems. I also cut out some of those adorable bugs from the border and appliqued them into the quilt…bringing the border into the main picture. To finish the design off I found a couple of cute butterflies and a dragonfly to applique into the upper corner.

Now that my design was complete, it was time to quilt. Since getting my new sewing machine, I have much more confidence in my ability to quilt. I decided that I would do this one myself instead of sending it to my aunt-in-law. I chose a bubbly printed blue flannel fabric as the backing. I typically like to use flannel to add an extra level of coziness to the quilt. I sewed all of my flowers and bugs on. Then I quilted the ‘sky’ in a ‘wind’ pattern, the lowest green in a ‘grass’ pattern and the middle in just a random jigsaw-esque pattern.

To complete this beauty I used some more hand-dyes to bind the outside edge. I’m extremely happy with the end result and I can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks!

And to name it! I’m going to call it ‘Spring Flowers' and it is for sale in my etsy shop!