Quilts for boy and girl twins

It's a while since I made baby quilts - almost a year! I've written about how to make baby quilts a number of times - here, here and here. I've also written about methods of making super quick quilts in a hurry, here. So I won't spend more time here repeating the tutorials. But I did want to make sure I put my latest efforts on the blog. It's become easier with practice!

Now, I had two to make. My husband's niece the other side of the world had twins recently, a boy and a girl.  A bit earlier than expected, so I had to get a move on - espeically as they would take a while to arrive in the post.

Here's the boy's finished quilt.

For a little more information, read on.
Both quilts used charms sets (or packs of ready cut 4" /10cm squares). Previously, I've moaned about how boring these can be - mainly floral and pastels - don't like those for either sex! Previously, I've sometimes resorted to buying fabrics and cutting my own squares, but that's laborious, and I didn't have much time! So I did more research, and ended up buying multiple sets, with the idea I would throw a lot away. 

This is after I've laid out some sets to see what I've got, for the boy quilt. Some have already been rejected. (Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the girl quilt before I sent it off, so keen was I to catch the post.) The quilts were going to be 11 squares by 8 squares, so I thought 4 squares of each of 22 different designs would work.

Next, here's my first attempt to lay out a design I liked. In fact, it's pretty close to the final quilt, if you assume the next picture is rotated through 90 degrees.

Here's the finished front of the quilt, with a simple spotty border surrounding the quilted squares. (You'll find all the methodology in the earlier posts I referred to, especially this and this. The first one is about starting the quilt, and the second about finishing it off.) You'll see I've also attached a little appliquéd initial. You can find out how I make appliqués here.

For the backing, I used a larger version of the spotty material.

Finally, it was washed and ready to post!

I mentioned that I forgot to take any photos of the girl quilt before it went in the post. However, my sister-in-law sent me a picture of it in use.

 It's more floral, but it's not all floral!

And here's the little man on his quilt.