Lilys Quilt finish

 

Thank crunchie its Friday! I have a finish to show you today (yippee!) but as I also have a sick little baby, this post is going to be photo heavy, and light on text.

Briefly - this is a quilt I made for a little toddler called Lily, as a present from her aunt. She wanted something girlie and mentioned reds, pinks and greens as key colours. I started with this charm as the basis for my colours, and the whimsical feel of the quilt, and worked from that as my inspiration.

I think it fits the bill! It's made loosely based on Kristie's McKinley pattern, but I sized it up and made some adjustments to suit what I needed.

 

 And I love the charms I used in this one - all from my scrap bin or my stash. Aren't they pretty?

The hearts are appliqued on and the name is hand embroidered. (I have a tute on hand embroidering names on quilts here if you're interested in finding out more about this technique).

The backing is a poplin hexie print. It looks lovely but those of you who follow me on Instagram (I'm @sewfairyface) will know that the denser weave of the fabric caused me a few quilting headaches. That, and I also think the spray baste caused me some problems, I think I need a new can, the one I have is pretty old. But I do love that hexie fabric.

But despite the difficulty I had quilting it (and you get quilts like that anyway, right? The ones that feel like you're trying to wrestle an uncooperative animal? Every so often I get a quilt that's really difficult to quilt - don't know why, it just happens. Please tell me I'm not alone!) I really am happy with how its turned out.

I love the red dotty binding, I think it frames the charms so nicely.

This measures 44.5" x 55.5", so perfect for a toddler and I will be happy (but sad) to send it off to Lily's aunt over the weekend

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Prince Charming Baby Boy Quilt Finish

My sister asked me back a few months ago if I would make a quilt for her sister-in-law's new baby when he or she arrived, and I very happily agreed because I love making baby quilts. We decided to wait for the baby to be born as they didn't know if they were expecting a boy or a girl, and I'm not a huge fan of gender neutral quilts when there are so many lovely fabrics out there for baby boys and girls.

Baby Tom duly arrived a few weeks ago and I soon got started on his quilt. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you'll have seen my progress pictures as I worked on this. (I love, love, LOVE Instagram - I just love being able to snap a picture and upload it straight away, with very few words needed! So, well, so...instant!! If you're not using it, and you have a smart phone, I'd definitely recommend it, it's fun and totally addictive. If you do, I'm @sewfairyface, say hi!)

I decided to a boy version of the Princess Charming quilt I made last year. I love working with charms, and, having a pretty big supply of large scraps in novelty prints as well as an extensive (*ahem*) stash, it allowed me to showcase lots of them.

 

 I just love the combination of owls, zebras, whales, beetles, birds and other "critters", alongside the cars, bikes, trains and trucks. There's even a pirate in there! I used the two Ann Kelle train and car prints as my starting point for the colour palette, with blue, orange, green and brown as the dominant colours and I am happy with how the colours balanced out, it feels bright and vibrant and cheery, just perfect for a little boy. 

 Similarly to the quilt I made last year, I embroidered baby's name on this one. As Tom is such a lovely, short little name, I decided to do a more elaborate letter style so it wouldn't be lost on the white panel. I used perle cotton #8 for this, in a vibrant turquoise colour, and I used a stem stitch which gives fantastic definition and presence.

I'm always slightly nervous doing hand embroidered letters, there's a lot of potential for them to go wrong, and if they're not good they ruin the look of a quilt and detract from a polished finish. But, happily, with slow and careful work, I got this looking pretty close to how I imagined it. I had some little circle appliques left over from Mr D's Circles quilt, the very last pieces I have of Laurie Wisbrun's elephants and the monkeys from the original Hooty Hoot prints, and I was thrilled to use them here.

I backed it with a blue print I've had in my stash quite a while from Sheri Berry's Child's Play with Kate and Nate for Northcott. I wish I had bought more of these prints when they were out, it was a really lovely line.

I also inserted some strips of the backing fabric into my binding - I've seen this look on other quilts previously and liked it a lot. I randomly pieced 4 strips of differing lengths in, one on each side and I love how it looks like the binding has disappeared in parts from the back.

 This quilt measures approx 38 x 50 and is a lovely baby size. It's gone off now to my sister to be gifted to baby Tom and I hope he will enjoy it and get lots of use from it. Linking up to Finish It Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts and Lets Hear it for the Boy at 733 Blog.

P.S. Don't forget to enter my great Seamstar giveaway here - it runs till Monday 12th August.  

Baby boy quilt finish

As well as having my own gorgeous little new baby girl, I also have a new baby nephew, born just 7 weeks before my darling. So, obviously, he needed a quilt from his auntie Sarah. I picked out the fabrics after he was born  - already dreaming of bright and cheerful spring colours with boyish tones - but was unable to do too much with them.

Last week I pulled them out again and very quickly cut and pieced them.



I used Elizabeth Hartman's baby charm quilt pattern and its definitely one I'll be using again for last minute quilts, so simple and easy and because its about 33 x 40, very quick to baste, quilt and bind too. I decided to embroider his name in the bottom corner, using a simple running stitch in perle cotton. I traced his name using washable marker and it worked very well. I fused a small piece of very lightweight interfacing to the back of the fabric before starting to stablise the stitches a little.

After quilting it using a random stipple with some little hearts around his name, I picked a blue heart poplin print for the binding:



And a green hippo print from IKEA for the backing.

And in no time at all, it was done and ready to give to my sister today just in time for his Christening.



It's good to have my sewing mojo (or my sewjo as I saw it referred to during the week!) back again. I'm busy getting my list of projects for quarter 2 of the Finish A Long ready to post on Monday. Hope you're having a great weekend!

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.