Princess Charming baby quilt top

Don't you love a new project? One that grabs your imagination and gets you creativity flowing again?

When my mother in law asked me if I would make a baby quilt for her friend's new granddaughter, I was thrilled. There are lots of lovely fabrics in my stash and I wanted something colourful and cheerful, simple and bright. Not too taxing, construction wise.


I cut lots and lots of charms using precious scraps like the very last of my swinging girls, my owls, my willow wren and lots of other pretty ones. I added some Japanese charms from last year's swap. Soon, I had a big pile of gorgeousness just waiting to be laid out.

I thought about the pattern for a little while and then decided to use a modified version of 2 different patterns - this crib quilt from Moda Bake Shop, and Kristie's McKinley quilt pattern which I had made before. I increased the size of the crib quilt to make it wider, and want to do something a little like what Kristie did - i.e. applique and the baby's name embroidered.

I had lots of fun piecing this the last couple of days, it flew together for me and I intend on embroidering the name tonight so I can baste it tomorrow and get it quilted. 

"Sophie's Dreams" Quilt

Today, I finished the quilt I am making.. I'm delighted with how it turned out. It's very bright and busy, but it works and I think there's a nice balance of colour in it. It's girlie without being too pink which I love!

It measures approx 53.5" by 60" which is midway between cot bed size and full twin bed size. It's designed like this to allow it to be used on Sophie's cot bed at the moment.

Then, when she moves into a bigger bed, it will be big enough to layer it up over another cover and keep using it. It is also a lovely size for a throw as she gets older :-)

    
I used Warm and White cotton batting in it, and the front is pieced almost entirely from designer fabrics - lots of mixing and matching in terms of pattern, fabric range etc but this adds to its charms. I quilted it using wonky straight lines, quite close together and it has ended up with a lovely texture!

This is one of my favourite parts of the top with the owls and ladybirds sitting side by side!

The back is pieced from 2 lengths of fabric - a small floral cotton print, and Sophie's full name is appliqued in the middle of the back. I used a solid green binding on this as a patterned binding would have been too much agains the quilt top.

Hope you all like as much as I do! Aren't the Russian dolls cute?

I'm linking this up to Fabric Tuesday on Quilt Story and some other parties too, check out the links on my sidebar -->

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!