Another Doll Quilt

We've had three sunny days in a row.  Absolutely amazing!  Our temperature yesterday got all the way up to 68°F.  Now to those of you who are enjoying warm--even hot--weather already, that may not seem like much.  But would you be impressed if I told you it's the warmest day we've had so far this year?  Time to break out the tube tops--if you're 16, that is.  As for me, my tube top days have been over since early on in the 14th Century.

Today I started the day by heading over to the local nursery and buying some tomato starts.  This year I'm declaring war on the tomatoes.  That is to say that I'm not planting them in the garden.  Rather, they will all live in large pots in my greenhouse for the entire season.  They have disappointed me by refusing to ripen for the last time.  Once I had them safely tucked in, I got off to a good start on the fifth of five doll quilts I'm making for my friend Lisa's granddaughters.  This quilt is for Allison, the youngest.  Allison's mother asked for something with red and purple butterflies.

After quite an extensive search for a pattern I thought would work (and one that I actually wanted to make), I came up with this pattern from a book I have entitled, Joined at the Heart, by Ann Moscicki and Linda Wyckoff-Hickey.  It makes a larger quilt, but I envisioned Allison's quilt to look something like this:

So today, I sorted through my green scraps and came up with the background fabrics I wanted to use.  Then I made nine blocks for the background.  This involved sewing together 2 1/2-inch by 10 1/2-inch strips--five for each block--then cutting them wonky and trimming them to 8 1/2-inch blocks.  Then I sewed them together to complete the background.

Tomorrow I'll add the borders.  I haven't decided whether to add one or two borders.  For sure, I'll be using this floral fabric, called "Butterfly Garden."  I really like this fabric.  I'll use it for the back of the quilt as well.

Then I'll make the butterfly appliques using combinations of these fabrics.  My plan is to use the black polka dot fabric for the bodies of the butterflies and then make their wings from combinations of reds and purples. I might decide to make an inner narrow border from the polka dot fabric too.  What do you think?

I might use the polka dot fabric for the binding too.  Or maybe red.  Or maybe purple.  Or maybe black.  It's hard to say.  What would you do if you were making it?  I'm sort of tempted to use a red to bring out the red in the floral fabric, and because that was what Allison's mother requested. 

This is my favorite part of quilting:  deciding on the fabrics and seeing how it all comes together.  And I'll just say that I'm feeling pretty smug that this entire quilt will be made up of scraps from my stash.  Oh yes.  And this qualifies as a NewFO project for April.

How did your Easter Monday go?