Butterfly Medallion Quilt

Happy Mother's Day everyone, I hope you're having a lovely day. (Not sure my friends on the other side of the Atlantic are celebrating today but this side certainly are.) After a mega busy few weeks here in lovely Cork, I'm finally catching up on myself with some blog writing. First job is to finally post my Medallion QAL progress, which is happily a finish.

I had decided from the start to make this medallion in a baby size. Originally I was planning to stop at 40" square, but as the design-as-you-go process played out, I found that I needed to go a tiny bit bigger, so this stopped at 43".

The central block was a butterfly block, inspired by Megan's tutorial.

 

We used the process outlined by Melanie in her great tutorials. Alas, quilt maths is not my strong point and only a couple of borders in I managed to mess up my border width giving me a very challenging quilt top width to work with on the next border. After a LOT of trial, error, ripping and ranting, I finally got a triangle border to work.

 

Inpired by Cindy's border, I did square-within-square cornerstones on this border, fussy cutting some little girls for it, and I think this is the detail I love the most about this quilt.

 

 Each little girl is different.

I finished off with a skiny border and progressed quickly onto basting and quilting. I did wonder how the basting was going to work out, as I've found medallion quilts can look a bit ripply and don't lie quite flat when you're piecing the top, but I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was.

Love that crinkly texture that quilting with Aurifil 50wt gives my quilts. It just sinks into the quilt when you wash it and feels so lovely.

I used a bright and cheerful print on the back. One of the reasons I stopped at 43" rather than adding more borders was that I didn't want to piece a back because it would break up the effect of that lovely geometric pattern. (Plus, obviously, I'm lazy when it comes to piecing quilt backs).

You can see the third cornerstone in this picture too - I think that girl is my favourite.

Lastly the binding - what else but pink hearts for a baby girl?

This quilt has gone off to meet its new little owner, and I know that it will be very loved. It was a lot of work, with a lot of tiny piecing in it, but so very worth it. I think it is one of my favourite quilts I've ever made. It was made almost entirely from fabrics in my scrap basket and stash, with the exception of the binding and some of the background fabric. Just goes to show that scrappy doesn't have to mean mismatched and random but can be bright and pretty and together.

 

I'm linking up with the Medallion Quiltalong over on the MGQ Ireland page.

An old favourite (Across the Sea nostalgia, anyone?)

Last week I was off with the hubbie and kids for mid term break, and in the course of not having to get up before 6:30am, lazing around the house in the mornings and generally taking it easy and having fun, I appear to have found my "sewjo". My brother in law had asked me to make a couple of quilts for him to gift to good friends who had babies recently and when I was trying to figure out what to make for one of them, I was hit by a genius idea.

I got cutting, then I got chain piecing. Almost overnight, I had a quilt top and before I knew it I had a quilt. An Across the Sea quilt. Swoon, swoon, swoon.

I was surprised at the wave of nostalgia I got in comments on Instagram about this one - I think it was a lot of people's first quiltalong, or even their first quilt. I had a bit of a trip down memory lane myself.

This is such a quick and easy block to make, and so striking too. It allows the fabrics to shine, which I always love, and I had lots of lovely FQs in my stash to use for this quilt. Like the retro flowers one, it just came together effortlessly in terms of fabric selection - I always think that's a giveaway as to when you are in possession of your sewjo - when it's absent, fabric selection seems like such a massive hurdle to get over and nothing flows.

I really am happy at how the two amber coloured prints worked with the rest of the colours, they just keep it fresh and vibrant.

I backed this one in some red flannel I had in my stash and I absolutely LOVE it as backing. It's snuggly and soft and the quilting shows up so nicely on it too. I will absolutely be investing in flannel again for backing, its wonderful. It did have a LOT of shrinkage though - I was glad I prewashed, which was more for the red colour than the perceived shrinkage.

 The binding is a fabric from Marmalade which marries the front and back nicely with the pinks and red. I did a stipple quilt on this one using white Aurifil thread.

And all rolled up in squishy perfection!

 All ready to go off to its new home :-)

If you want to make an Across the Sea quilt, Jennifer and I did a quiltalong for it a few years ago, you can find all the pattern posts here. I'll be linking this up to Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, and don't forget to come back here tomorrow to link up your February scrappy projects in the Put Your Scraps to Work challenge.

A Flowery Finish

I love little pram quilts. They are so sweet and pretty and so practical. My last two babies were winter babies and I got so much use out of little quilts and blankets when we were out and about, I loved having something pretty to put on their prams/car seats/buggies, particularly if it was a little quirky or different.

So when I get the chance to make a pram quilt, I love it. A friend of one of my best friends had a new baby girl before Christmas, and I happily agreed to make a little quilt for her for my friend to gift her. This sweet little retro flowers quilt is the result.

I used 3 Bonnie and Camille prints - 2 from the Scrumptious line, and one from Ruby. The soft pink is an Aneela Hoey print. They all play so nicely together. This was one of those quilts where there was no fretting about fabrics, no fabric auditioning. I made the blue Ruby block first. The next morning when I woke up, I knew exactly what fabrics I wanted to use to work with it. I just love when a quilt top just comes together for you, almost as if you had it in your head all along just waiting to come out.

This was a lovely little block to make and came together quite quickly - possibly because I'm now totally comfortable with curved piecing thanks to Leanne's fabulous tute. I never thought, after my first miserable attempt at curves back in December 2011, I would ever say this about curves, but I really enjoyed sewing those blocks and they came out pretty close to perfect! I used my Accuquilt Go! Baby to cut the curved block pieces using the drunkard's path die - I really love it for those tricky pieces. I'd never attempt blocks like this, or hexies, without it.

I had a soft pink ditsy flower print in my stash for a long long time that I used for the back - its a very soft lightweight cotton, not dissimilar to a lawn, and its beautifully soft as a backing. I quilted it with Aurifil 50wt white thread - I flew through the quilting as its so small, and when I washed it, the shrinkage was just about perfectly giving it a lovely crinkly texture.

The binding is a cotton poplin in a heart print - colour wise its a pink toned red and works nicely with the rest of the colours.

This little quilt measures 30" x 36" and has gone to it's new home where I believe it was very happily received and I hope it gets lots and lots of use.

Pyramid Quilt..1st quilt finish of 2014

I find it slightly hard to believe that we are half way through February and this is my first quilt finish of the year. I finished this on Saturday and dashed out between the downpours today to get some picture. Happily, finishing it appears to have kick started my sewjo and I finished another quilt yesterday which I will be showing off tomorrow.

I called this beauty Pyramid. I love, love, love it. It is everything I hoped it would be.

 Love those rows of triangles although they nearly broke my heart. As you know, I had some doubts about using the low volume triangles and breaking up the pattern but now that its all done, it really truly works as I hoped and draws the eye through the quilt and make the brights pop beautifully.

This is, to a degree, an I Spy quilt. I fussy cut loads and loads of the triangles and there is so much there for a little girl to look at.

For the back, I had a lovely Zoology print in my stash - unfortunately not enough for the whole back, but a little bit of pink brought it up to size. I was hoarding this for the right project, and this was definitely it.

 Love the pink and grey and those pretty giraffes and elephants.

I originally planned to quilt this in a pattern of multiple loops in the white/grey triangles, and tried it on the first few rows. But it really didn't work for me and I didn't like how it looked. So instead I went with a loopy stipple quilting pattern and this worked much better. I used a pure white Aurifil 50wt thread and its sunk into the quilt beautifully with the slight shrinkage after washing.

 

Perfect texture, I think. Rachel's little pals agree.

I put out a question on Instagram and Facebook last week, asking for opinions on binding options. I was really surprised by the number of replies I got, and it was really interesting to read people's opinions. A big part of me wanted to use the grey fabric binding, but when I put it against the quilt by itself, it didn't work like I thought it would and kind of sucked the life out of the bright prints. So I used the pink, and although as I said at the weekend, I felt it was a bit obvious, it's really grown on me and I feel it was the right choice.

So little miss Rachel finally has her own proper quilt for her room. This is not really a baby quilt - its more of a little girl's quilt and will grow with her, coming in at 72" x 48". I hope she gets lots of use out of it.