Woohoo! First quilt finish of 2013 :-)))))

 

Those noises you're hearing and wondering what they are? They're the sound of me doing a happy dance that I have finally - almost 3 months into the year - managed a quilt finish. Yippee!

It's a very small quilt - a baby size pram quilt - but a big milestone. Finished this morning as my baba hit the 10 week mark - can you believe how fast the weeks are flying by?  (A hell of a lot faster than the last 10 weeks of pregnancy which were pure torture!) After she was born, I bought a couple of Posy charm packs and when they arrived, I stroked them for a couple of weeks while I was deciding what to do with them. I've wanted to try a tumbler quilt for a little while now, and as the charms lent themselves so easily to cutting into tumbler shapes, I made quick progress once I jumped in and started cutting. I used about 1.5 charm packs - or slightly less - on this, primarily picking the brightest fabrics from the packs.

Back in the Black Friday sale, I bought a yard of Happy Ever After fabric from The Intrepid Thread just because I thought it was lovely - it was one of a few boys and girls fabrics I bought to make sure I had some lovely fabrics in my stash when baby arrived. I really like how it works against the quilt top - totally different, but sweet and girlie also and able to stand on its own enough to make this functional as a double sided quilt.

I quilted it in a random stipple using Aurifil 50wt thread in a light pink, adding in lots of hearts for my gorgeous baby who has truly stolen our hearts! I like how the quilting shows up on this picture I took in the sunlight this morning before washing it:

After that, all that remained was to bind it. I auditioned a few binding choices over on Instagram,  but wasn't really happy with any of them. So I popped off to the local fabric shop and while I was looking at fabrics, noticed they had a premade bias binding in precisely the colour I had been searching for in the fabrics.

I really am happy with the deep purple binding, it works well with the Posy colours and kind of grounds the colours and frames the quilt. (I also might be in love with the premade binding, this was the nicest I've found and super easy and quick to work with. Anything that makes the process easier at the moment!)

And ta-dah, it's done!! I hope you'll forgive me the number of photos for such a small quilt (25 x 36"), but as you can see, I'm very excited to finally have a finish to show you. And here's the lady herself, kicking around happily on it this evening!

I'm working on a few other things - don't forget to pop over and follow me on Instagram where I am posting regular pictures of my work in progress and enjoying looking at what everyone else is working on.
 

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday over at Quilt Story:

Naptime Sewing

 
It's been a busy 6 weeks here, but I've managed to squeeze some sewing into R's nap time in the last week or so, and its amazing how great it makes me feel. I didn't realise how much I had missed the process of making things - it does my sanity good! It might seem like its impossible to sew with a new baby, but I am finding 15 minutes here and there and making progress steadily working in bite size chunks, so to speak!

When I was browsing around looking for cute tutorials to make things for R, I found a great tutorial to restyle a little girl's tshirt into a dress and decided to try it on a tshirt E has had in her wardrobe, unworn for months now. I haven't done any garment sewing in a long time, so it was fun to tackle a different project.

Ooops - of course, I discovered the reason she hasn't worn it when I started sewing - its more than a full size too big for her, but by the time she fits it, the Moshi Monsters will no doubt be last year's fad. So I kept going and added some ruffles. I used a knit, a cotton and a seersucker to give some different textures.

 

When I pinned this, I thought it would be a simple enough project, but I found sewing the ruffles on in layers a bit tricky. But I got there in the end and I think it turned out pretty cute.

Next I moved on to making something for my baby girl. When I saw the peasant dresses that Toni sewed for her baby girl last summer, I made a mental note to make some myself if I had a baby girl. So I ran up one in the last few days, using a pretty cotton print I found in the local fabric shop, and a little bit of one of my stash fabrics (Hope Valley I think?).

 

I used this free tute, although I might buy the pattern so I can size it up as its very pretty. I even added the ric rac edging!

The pattern is great and easy to make. The only thing I realised - at the very end - is that the sizing is quite small. I only noticed that even though its 0-3 months, its up to 12lbs - most of the 0-3 month clothing here in Ireland goes up to 13.5lbs at a minimum, even 14lbs sometimes.  Some my chubby little lady is already nearly at the weight limit and I'd say she'll get only a couple of wears out of it.... I'll just have to make another in a bigger size! :-)

The last project I've been working on is a tumbler quilt with my Posy charm packs. Here's a sneak peek...I have the tumblers all pieced and just need to add some borders to have a finished quilt top. I'm loving working on this and aiming to get it finished maybe next weekend, it will only be a small pram sized quilt but very pretty.

Getting the time to write posts and upload pics is still a bit of an effort, as is commenting on other blogs. But as I have my phone on me most of the time, I am snapping what I'm working on and posting it on Instagram (sewfairyface) and my FB page, and following others on the same apps that I can browse easily while cuddling or feeding a baby so if you want to keep up with me, you might like to follow me there. And if you leave your Instagram name or link to your FB page in the comments I'll be able to keep up easier with you too :-)