Quilting crazy - Sneak Peak of Sophie's quilt

It's no secret that I am relatively new to crafting, and really very new to quilting. I'm in the middle of making two quilts at the moment and I think I can officially declare that I am a total convert to this fabulous and wonderful new world.

I spent Sunday evening crawling around my playroom floor basting this quilt and went to bed stiff and sore after it. Undeterred, I sat down this evening in front of the machine and spent about 2 and a half hours quilting. Now my neck is sore, my eyes are tired and my shoulders ache from pulling the quilt around and around all evening. But I am so so SO happy!!! I just can't wait to get home from work tomorrow night and quilt some more :-) I got well over half of it quilted tonight so hopefully another evening will finish it. Everyone who told me quilting was addictive was so right :-)

I love the process and end result of quilting more than I ever could have imagined. And I've found coming up with my own quilt designs (however simple) & choosing my fabrics to make the design work completely inspirational - I have about a hundred ideas lined up in my head waiting to be made up in new quilts!

This is my "Sophie's Dreams" quilt, made for a little girl called Sophie. Its filled with flowers, animals, birds, dolls, bright colours, stripes, dots, beautiful patterns and lots of inspiration for a little lady. It's not a princess-y pink kind of quilt (though I'm partial to those too!) but is still beautiully girlie. Sizewise, its somewhere between a cot size and a twin bed size, so its the biggest thing I've made so far. It's made up of large 7.5" squares, randomly placed and after considering lots and lots of quilting methods, I finally decided to quilt it in slightly wonky straight lines. I like the imperfectness of the wonky lines - totally straight would not fit with the character of the quilt. They're quilting up very nicely indeed  and I'm glad I spent the time and effort basting it very carefully and closely because its paying off now in terms of ease of quilting.  I'm using an ivory cream natural cotton thread and love the effect. I'm also loving my quilting extension table which arrived a few weeks ago, it makes the whole process so much easier!

The back is a cream floral cotton print that I found in my local fabric store and works well on the back of this busy quilt. I have appliqued Sophie's name in the centre of the quilt back, using Bondaweb and then stitching around the edges for security. This will give the edges a slightly frayed effect as it is washed and used which is intentional and again, fits with the character of the quilt.

 

I'm looking forward to getting this quilt finished in the coming days. For the moment, I'll keep dreaming up ideas for the next quilt I'm going to do!

Make Up Brush Roll for Facebook giveaway

Tonight I finally found some time to make a giveaway item.  I'm running this giveaway from my Facebook page, so head on over there to enter. I will post anywhere, Ireland or internationally, so its open to anyone.

This is made from a very cute floral print, pink on white and uses a fabric from the same range as a contrast. The main fabric is "Darla" by Tanya Whelan.

It measure 24cm x 20 cm and holds 7-8 brushes, depending on size.

It rolls up and has a ribbon tie sewn in. I love it! Its a straightforward make, perfect for gift giving.

*In case ye were wondering, the make up and brushes are not included!! :-)

More baby gifts....

I finished this cool baby comforter last night and I love it, I think its my favourite so far! Its so cheerful and colourful. The back is baby blue minky and the front is really soft apple green fleece.






The rocket is appliqued on, mainly in fleece with decorative red stitching and some fabric features from the Riley Blake "Wheels" collection which I think work really well.










Hopefully the lovely little baby boy I made it for will get lots of fun from it, with all the different ribbons and textures to enjoy. It measures approx 33 x 33 cm without the ribbons, so is a really nice size for a blankie.


I'm now working on some baby blankets with the lovely fabric I got from American Etsy stores this week. I've now just got too much choice and its hard to pick something to start with. For the boy's baby blanket I'm going with this lovely funky owl fabric backed with minky:





But I still can't decide on which fabric to use for the baby girl's blanket. I'll figure it out later on but now its time for a nice cup of tea!

Butterfly cuteness

Another baby comforter finished tonight :-)






This is made with polar fleece, appliqued with some lovely Riley Blake summer song fabric. Ribbons are sewn into the edges to add some interest for baby and the back is hand embroidered with baby's name. I hope the recipient has some fun with it when she gets a little older!

Baby Buggy Blanket

So it's finally finished!!! My first attempt at a patchwork blanket worked out really well and I'm very happy with it. It's been a learning process and there's a few things I'd do differently to make it absolutely perfect but overall I think my idea worked out as I hoped.

It's made of 100% cotton backed with beautiful, soft minky.






The cotton and minky gives it a lovely weight.

It would make a lovely blanket for a baby girl for a buggy/car seat or in a crib, soft and snuggly on the inside and bright and cheery on the outside. It measures approx 100cm by 74cm. I could easily size up to cot size too.





I'm very excited that it's finally done and the whole process of designing it was really exciting!! One of the things I am loving most about my new venture is that it's challenging me to come up with ideas and there's great satisfaction in that. There's a world of difference between following a pattern and generating the idea yourself. It's the getting from idea to finished product that's most challenging for me, particularly as I am mostly self taught. But I really (really!!) love when it comes together as this did. All that's left now is to parcel it up and send off to my beautiful niece and god-daughter L to enjoy!!

Loveys all around

I couldn't wait any longer to make something with the gorgeous minky so I got out my things last night and put together a brand new fish comforter yesterday evening. It is bright blue fleece, backed with baby blue minky, and has a fish applique in a contrasting fleece. I used some heavy cotton spotty fabric to applique the fins, tail and eye, and some thin blue ric rac for a wavy affect. Some soft blue fleece bubbles and lots of ribbon around the edges finished it off. There are lots of interesting contrasting textures for a baby's little fingers, not to mention bright colours.





It joins the 2 star loveys I made as baby presents, entirely of fleece and embroidered on the back with baby's name. I love making these, they are so soft and tactile and it's fun picking ribbon and deciding where to place it. Every single ribbon is different with a mixture of colours, widths, lengths and textures for greater exploration by little fingers!