Easy, Modern, and Curvalicious Baby Quilt

What's black and white and red all over? Yes of course, a  newspaper; a skunk with a papercut; and also ....

...This modern quilt that I just finished. I think it's a baby quilt, and it came about, superfast, because my quilting idol and friend Cheryl Lynch mailed me her brand-new 'Curvalicious' tool

The design is fascinating; To me, it has a neo-retro 50s feel, though perhaps I was also influenced by the radioactive color. (It doesn't actually glow in the dark - I ducked into the bathroom and turned off the lights to check.)

After determining that I didn't need lead gloves to handle it, I stared at it for a while longer and waited for it to talk....which it did! "Red and white!" it whispered. Yay, I love red-and-white quilts (how I wish I could have gone to this show), and always need more. So I traced the tool, twice with a washout marker; once onto red-with-white-polka dot fabric - I extended it to 5 circles long -  and once, only three circles long, onto striped red-and-white fabric. The pieces were then cut out with scissors.

I set the two long pieces at 90 degree angles, overlapping the corners, on a white background. Next, the circular openings were used to mark circles on black-and-white, red-and-white, and grey-and white geometric fabrics that I backed with lightweight fusible interfacing, to give them a bit more strength. Those were also cut out with scissors.

(Babies supposedly love high-contrast fabrics, which may or may not increase their IQs.)

Glue-stick everything down, raw-edge applique with a zig-zag stitch and invisible thread, then quilt in an easy sort-of hanging diamonds pattern. (The lines in one direction are straight, and the other have a gentle wave, for an op art effect.)

I could see using these same fabrics and the ruler to make a retro tablecloth and/or apron. Now you may be wondering, what OTHER kind of mood can you create with the Curvalicious design? The answer is quite a lot of them, including contemporary and elegant. Cheryl tested it on a quilt guild in Pennsylvania, and some used her jewel-tone dupioni kit to make stately table and grand piano toppers and wallhangings. Others used cottons for groovy 60ish explosions of rainbow colors. Find all the eye candy from her guild session here.

Cheryl is selling the ruler and an optional dupioni kit on her etsy site - details are here - and I swear I don't get any commission of any kind if you buy them. (Though I will enjoy watching Cheryl become very rich.) I can't wait to see what more people do with this  fascinating and whimsical shape!