Retro 70s Geometric quilt

I was recently asked to make a baby quilt with the brief being, "It's for my friend who is expecting a baby boy; she likes retro 70s."  Ah... where to start?  I looked up 70s style fabrics and found a few, but many were flowery and possibly not that suitable for a boy.  Then I searched for 70s design and came up with several exciting, colourful and retro patterns that looked like they would be fun to turn into quilt designs. 

We settled on a geometric HST design, set on point.  After a lot of deliberation, I ordered a selection of Kona solids that I thought matched the colours pretty well. 

The Kona solids I used are: snow, school bus, coal, everglade and sage, all available from Sew Hot. 

I chose to make my half square triangles using a mixture of the 8 at a time and 2 at a time methods.  I went for 4" finished squares for two reasons - firstly I think it is a good size for baby quilts (I like an 8 by 8 arrangement usually) and secondly, I have a 4 1/2" bloc loc ruler!  I make my HST slightly too big and then trim them down using the bloc loc ruler - a real game changer if you like making HSTs!  

I broke all the rules for the setting and corner triangles...  I ended up using triangles with their bias edges on the outer edge of the quilt - eek!  This wasn't intentional, it just didn't occur to me until last week when I was making my Community Sampler quilt block and ended up having an IG conversation with Sharon Holland about it.  Once I had realised this was what I had done, I made sure to handle the quilt top with great care, especially when pressing it.  I layered it with the batting and backing fabric and then sewed a line of stay stitching around the outer edge to keep it in shape. 

I stitched in the ditch using Aurifil 50wt in a light grey - which disappeared quite well on the front and blended in nicely on the backing fabric.  My usual go-to binding fabric would be stripes, but I thought there was enough going on with this quilt pattern, so chose the Kona sage instead. 

I'm pleased with the finished quilt - it's a nice size for a pram/moses basket or could be used as a colourful playmat.  

I bought this backing fabric from Sew Hot, it seemed the perfect style for this quilt.