Baby Quilt

My friend Karen is about to have a baby. Like any new mother-to-be, she is both excited, and nervous, and researching, and accumulating. It was not hard to figure I'd make her a baby quilt. What was more difficult is figuring out the colors and designs. Karen likes to wear black, and her baby shower was Nightmare Before Christmas themed. Right, so black and spooky it is, right? Maybe not. The big mystery with these things is in how the parents will bring up the kid. Dark and Spooky? More mainstream? Is this quilt for the Mama, or the baby? Also, I wanted to take the Dad's interests into account, and he's a professional car racer. Clearly, I needed to think about this. So I did. And then I decided to make the quilt reversible. And then I started sewing.
But first, the design. I saw a photo of an interesting design and set about deconstructing it (ah, the joy of graph paper drawings!). The design was harder than it first looked so this took me a while. But finally, I had it, and it was time to start cutting fabric.
One side of the quilt looks like this:

The design here of black patterned fabrics and purple sashing looked too dark when I was laying it out on my floor. I needed something to make it "pop". I looked and looked at my shelves of fabric and finally decided on blue taffeta. Not only is the taffeta lighter in shade, but it also has a sheen to it. Here's a close up:

Stepping back from this pieced top, it did look awfully dark and spooky, and so the other side needed to be brighter. Now it may be just me, but car racing goes with flames, and I just happened to have flame fabric so...here is the reverse:

The finished product is 42 x 59 inches and will be something that the baby can use as he grows. So for now it's for Mama and Dad, but later, I hope the kid will use it for himself.
I gave it to the parents-to-be this past weekend, so now I can post about it!
And onward we go.