Pinwheels Pram Quilt

Despite the fact that I managed to miss the wonderful Bloggers Quilt Festival for the last couple of rounds, being in that fog of late pregnancy and new baby sleeplessness, I am happy to be linking up to the Fall 2013 festival! If you're visiting for the first time, welcome to my little blog. Please do come back and visit me again! Without futher ado, read on to find out more about my little pram/baby quilt.

Our friends had a new baby boy a few weeks ago. Of course, you know what that translates to in my sewing-obsessed head: they needed a quilt for their new little boy. I'd put it on the long finger for a little while but when my hubby arranged to go and visit them this weekend, I decided I needed to get sewing pretty quickly this week.

I used Lindsay's method for making my HST blocks - its really quick and easy, with minimal cutting. You cut 2 large squares to yield 8 HST blocks. Her pattern cut to 18", but I had cut into some of the FQs I was using, so I cut mine to 12.5", which yielded me 8 x 5.5" HST blocks. I LOVE this method of making HSTs, and will definitely be using it again.

 I used a cream solid against each of the 6 fabrics I picked, I think the softness of it works well. The fabrics are a mix of different designers & lines that I put together myself with a little help from my Instagram friends :-) The navy, blue and orange were are so fresh for a little boy (I think) - it's nice to go for a colour palette that's not too traditional. The large dotty print was the inspiration print for this combo.

The backing is an IKEA kids fabric which Fiona gave me a good while ago. I love how cheery and boyish it is on the back, you could easily use this as a double sided quilt.

The last time I was in IKEA I couldn't find the bolts of kids fabric in their kids department which bothered me a bit, as I love them for backings and they are such great value too. Have they discontinued those little fabric bolts does anyone know?

I quilted it in a free motion stipple using my favourite Aurifil 50wt thread in white and it came out of the wash gloriously crinkly and soft. I pin basted this quilt too, and I am definitely going back to the pins for basting. I loved not having the sticky edges from the basting spray. 

The binding is a navy dotty poplin. This is a very little quilt - only 30" x 40", so really it is pram or crib size. I have a quilt about this size for my baby girl, and I use it all the time on her car seat, and now that she's bigger, its a perfect size to put her sitting on when she's down on the floor. I hope that baby Tadhg gets lots of use out of it and that his mum and dad like it :-)

First Quilt Finish of 2012 - at last!!

At last, finally, I have a quilt finish this year. It feels like a long time. It has been a long time! I finished up the last quilt of 2011 on Christmas week - more than 5 weeks, eek!

But I think it was worth the wait and I hope you do too :-)

This is a quilt for a baby boy born last week. I was asked to make it in yellow, white and blue, and while this combo of colours is quite traditional, I really loved working with it (much more than I anticipated.) The lemons and yellows are so cheerful and happy and absolutely lovely to have peeping out at me every time I looked at my sewing stack in the kitchen on these gloomy days. And the blues, well, what can I say, you know I love my aquas. Interestingly when I went to my stash for blues, there are very few true blues there, most of them are in the aqua/turquoise/teal family, but I think that is ok, and it keeps this quilt very fresh.

The pinwheel blocks are approx 7.5" finished size. I am really happy with the point matching on this one. When making my HSTs I took my time, gave myself an extra 1/8" while cutting and piecing so that I could trim them to a perfect size, and you can see it in the blocks. It was so much easier to piece the top than other HST quilts I have done because it was so much more accurate. HSTs are a LOT of work, but I always think they are worth it in the end. The quilt measures 39" x 47" finished.

I love the movement in the quilt and pieced my blocks so as to give a slight optical illusion to the pinwheels spinning.

I also, for the first time on a full size quilt, handfinished the binding. I wasn't convinced I was going to love it but I got friendly with my thimble, stitched away in front of the tv a couple of nights, and I *might* be a convert. I went with a slightly wider binding than I normally do and I must admit I like it more than I thought I would.

The backing is a cream fabric with a tiny blue and yellow floral print and works great with the front.

I quilted this one with a meandering stipple and a few loops. It was so much fun to quilt because the size is so manageable, compared to the big quilts I did at the back end of last year. I used Aurifil white thread on the front and cream on the back. Now that its been washed and dried, the quilting has sunk into it nicely and its beautifully crinkly!

 This one is wrapped and ready to post off in the morning and I hope baby will love it!

I'm linking up to {Sew} Modern Monday, Manic Monday and Fabric Tuesday with this one!

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Fresh quilt start!

It feels like there has been a lot of writing and organising going on here the last few weeks, and not so much sewing! I was determined to change that this week and took myself to my stash to pull fabrics for a new quilt. Then, last night and this morning I got cutting and did a little piecing. Oh, there is nothing nicer than a fresh rotary blade in your cutter and miles of lovely fabric to cut!!!

This is a baby boy's quilt. The person I am making it for wants blue, yellow and white. I love the combination of colours - so fresh and gorgeous! I had to order a number of yellow fabrics as I'm not strong on these in my stash, but I had lots of blues. With the limited colours, I wanted to have lots of interest in shades, prints and values and I think I assembled a nice mix in the end!

Then I trialled a couple of blocks. Pinwheels, I just love them. So simple, so classic but just lovely with the right fabrics because there is so much movement in them.

Do you hear that satisfied sigh? That's me, all ready to get chain piecing tonight when the kids are gone to bed! Now, time to go off and do what I've been avoiding all day: tidy up, put away the shopping, spend some quality time with the kids and supervise the homework (that doesn't fall in the quality time category....maybe I will leave that job to Himself when he gets in from work!).

Hope you're having a good day! I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Pinwheel Pips Quilt finish

Another quilt done - that's 5 this year so far, not including the minis. Pretty good going for me, I'm really happy with that! So, without out further ado, here it is, Pinwheel Pips!

This quilt was made for my 3 year old daughter E. She loves dogs, scooters and swings, so the Sherbet Pips fabric was a perfect choice for her. She has asked every single day for a month if it was finished yet, so I was really pleased to hand it over to her today. It makes a perfect cape for Super Lady, her current favourite imaginary persona.....

I have mixed feelings about this quilt really. I enjoyed piecing it and I think my accuracy in cutting and piecing has improved hugely since earlier this year, and it shows here. When I was sewing together my rows of pinwheels, the vast majority of them matched up perfectly!

 

There are a few that didn't, they don't worry me too much, and one that was completely off that I had to unpick 6 or 7 times to get it remotely close. But overall I am happy with the piecing. My job is so stressful that I like not to stress about quilting, and everything lining up perfectly and tend to go with the flow once it looks ok, I know some quilters would hate this approach but it works for me!

I also did my first attempt at a pieced back - a very simple one. I used one leftover block, put some borders on it and pieced it in the centre of the backing. I did an ok job of matching it up, one side is perfect, the other is slightly off but the quilting through it looks ok, so I'm happy with that.

I quilted it on the diagonal lines, 3/8" on either side of them to give a double line. I found the quilting harder than I anticipated -I'm not sure if the seams were stretching a little, being on the bias (or is that my imagination, I would have thought they wouldn't move once the quilt top was sewn together) and even though I basted it with pins a little closer together than normal, it seemed to move around a little on me and I have a few puckers. It was hard to keep the lines dead straight at some of the intersections because of the bulk of the seams meeting even though I had done a lot of work to make them lie flat. This is the first time I've quilted something this lightly and I think I really do prefer the more densely quilted look, although I like the squashiness of this.

I used a flat sheet for the backing, having seen other quilters do this and I'm kind of regretting it already. I bought a sheet on sale and I know it was cheap, and its polycotton, but I threw it in the wash last night and its bobbled already. Now, I use polycotton sheets quite a bit here when I can't get cotton, and I've never, ever, had a sheet bobble on me before, no matter how little I paid for it or how much it was used or washed. So I'm pretty annoyed and feel its taken the sheen off my quilt :-( I even, in a mad moment this morning, considered unpicking the binding and the quilting and requilting it. Hmm. I'm actually still considering that one. I just put so much work into the quilt top that I'm a bit disappointed that I'm not totally loving the end result.

I bound it with the remaining half yard of Its a Hoot eggs fabric, the gray colour compliments the colours in the quilt really well I think.

But, looking on the positives, E absolutely loves it and I have a cushion/pillow to match it for her so its a lovely set for her to snuggle in watching DVDs, or to drag around the playroom for her games.

Quilt Stats:

Name: Pinwheel Pips
Made For: my daugher E
Fabric: Sherbet Pips half layer cake (won in a giveaway thanks to Kristie at OCD) and 1 additional yard
Batting: Warm & White
Size: 51" x 51"
Quilting: Straight line quilting on the diagonal seams
Pattern:  Simple pinwheels & border

This is another one to mark off my Summer Sewing list!  Yay!

I'm linking this up to {Sew} Modern Monday, Fabric Tuesday  and some other great blogs - check out my sidebar for a full list of links ------>>

WIP Wednesday

Well its been a super busy week round here, how about everyone else? Isn't the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway just the best? I've had so much fun entering giveaways and discovering new blogs. If you want to enter mine, there's still time, you'll find the post here.

Completed this week:

Last week I was struggling a little with energy and ideas. I had a day off work on Thursday and just grabbed some fabric I liked, took out my notebook and tried to make up one of the ideas I had in it. It worked out great and I ended up putting it in my giveaway! I'm really happy with this little iPhone cozy, I'm definitely going to make more and even write up a little tutorial when I have a few things tweaked.

I had fun with some scrappy pincushions - they always leave me in a good mood!

I also made a pillow (or cushion as we would say here) with some leftover blocks from my Pips quilt:

This was another impulse make and my daugher is delighted with it, she loves the dogs on the fabric. I lightly quilted it on the diagonal lines using a leftover bit of cotton batting, and then backed it with some lovely soft red polar fleece for a really snuggly feel.

In Progress:

Well, I'm really excited to have finished my Pinwheel Pips quilt top. (Sorry the photo is so bad, it was taken in the evening and the light was really poor.) I decided on this layout because I love how it gives an optical illusion and you have to really look to see where the blocks are. I kind of wish I'd maybe had some more fabric to get a better balance of colours (I had half a layer cake) but I like how it turned out. I added the sashing to bring it up to a slightly better size for a child's throw, and really like the girls on the swings fabric I used, I think its my favourite print in this collection. E is very excited about it being nearly done. My lovely hubbie really wants me to quilt it with batting and backing rather than fleece as I was planning (he loves the texture of quilts and wants her first quilt to have that) and I picked up a pink flat sheet in Heatons on sale for only €5 for the backing - result! Maybe, if I'm very lucky and get some time at the weekend, I might just get it finished as I'm planning on light quilting similar to the pillow for this one.

Started:

I got most of the pieces cut for the next quilt I'm making which is a commission for a quilt similar to the one I made for Sophie a couple of months ago. It is a simple pattern of big squares intespersed with some 4 patch blocks. I'm sticking with red and green as the dominant colours but have some different fabrics and prints this time and I'm looking forward to laying these out, I love mixing up the colours and patterns to make the quilt really work.

Well, that's it for this week, its been a good one. Hope you are all enjoying the giveaway and welcome to all my new followers - please jump in and comment so I can get to know you!

I'm linking this up to Freshly Pieced as always, as well as some other great blogs.

WIP Wednesday

Wednesday again, and my WIP is pretty short and sweet this week!

Completed:

My Walk in the Woods quilt using an It's A Hoot layer cake. I will do a separate post for this quilt for the Blogger's Quilt Festival later in the week so I'm just showing the rolled up finished quilt here.


This took most of my time all week. I spent the weekend quilting it, and was pretty happy with my FMQ despite a slightly crazy start  (new quilting techniques and small children are not a good mix!) I am chuffed with how this quilt turned out and can't wait to put up the final pics. It just needs to be washed and dried to give it an even crinklier look so its ready for delivery on Sunday.


In Progress:


I've finished all my blocks for the Pinwheels Pips, they're pressed, trimmed to the correct size and I need to piece together my quilt top next. I've changed my idea for the quilt top layout a couple of times this week (lots of doodling!) so I need to finally decide what I'm going to do in the next couple of days. I'm also thinking of backing it with fleece as its intended as a throw for E - how does fleece quilt up? And if you have quilted with fleece, do you use batting as well? I'm afraid that might make it too heavy and warm. And as fleece is so much easier to work with and more stable than Minky I was wondering if I would be able to leave out the batting layer? Would love to hear any experiences, good or bad, if you have them!

The other little project I've been working on is a lovely piece of embroidery using this pattern:

Source: etsy.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Another great example of how much I love Pinterest - I found this pattern as a pin there a month or two back and just couldn't get it out of my head. I found a nice, natural coloured linen/cotton mix and am doing it bit by bit in front of the tv in the evenings. Hoping to get this finished up this week, I'm almost done with it and loving how it looks, even if my embroidery skills are pretty basic.

To Start:

I need to do a few sets of bunting for baby boys' rooms before the weekend for my nephew and my friends' two nephews.

I'm linking up as always to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced - get over there and check it out! And check back in later in the week to see more photos of my finished quilt.

First WIP Wednesday of the Summer

 

Can you believe its Wednesday again already? All those bank holiday weekends and holidays in the last few weeks have made it hard to keep track of the days. Here's this week's progress!

Completed:

My Dresden plate mini quilt - really happy with this one, its very pretty in real life. It measures 30" x 30" and is a perfect wall hanging!

I also got my Summer Sewing plans straight in my mind and blogged them to give me a little focus. For those list-makers among you, I'd love if you had a look and joined up your own summer sewing plans at the linky here. I've tried to do a button for you to link back your posts, let me know if its not working!

<div align="center"><a href="http://fairyfacedesigns.blogspot.com/2011/05/summer-sewing-plans-add-yours.html" title="FairyFace Designs"><img src="http://i1085.photobucket.com/albums/j433/FairyFaceDesigns/summersewinglogo2.jpg" alt="FairyFace Designs" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

In Progress:

I have the Walk in the Woods/It's a Hoot quilt just about ready to baste, I'm hoping to get that done tonight. I had some issues with fraying on some of my seams that I've had to spend some time repairing (why? its never happened to me before. I used a layer cake, but can't imagine that's a reason? I'm not having any similar problems with the Pips layer cake.)

I also got a lot done on my Pinwheel Pips quilt for E. Not least because I can't cope with the constant "is my quilt done yet Mam" questions. I've done all the piecing using a chain piecing process for the first time, which made me be super organised to stop getting everything mixed up, and it was surprisingly quick - I've only a few more seams to do to have all my blocks done. I'm loving the pinwheels - I was a bit worried about my points all matching up but so far its going better than I expected. And I just love the movement in the blocks. Looking forward to laying out all my blocks next and piecing the quilt top together. I used quite a few white solid charms in with my half layer cake to keep it fresh, as there's a lot of pink and grey and to get a decent size.

That's pretty much it for this week, it's been productive! I'll be linking up as always to Lee's WIP Wednesday and some other great blogs - check out my sidebar for the links :-)

P.S. - I've got a button!! For those of you who asked, feel free to grab it for your blogs. It's on my sidebar :-)

It's another WIP Wednesday!

Source: etsy.com via Amber on Pinterest

I did warn you all that there would be lots going on on my blog this week! I'm having such a lovely week, lots of sewing, lots of time with the kids and Himself...what's not to love!

As an aside, isn't this the most AMAZING April ever? I don't think I remember such warm balmy sunshine in April...ever!! The kids are loving being out in the garden all day, I'm loving being out with them, or in the kitchen with the windows and doors open sewing while listening to them off adventuring as only 3 and 4 year olds can. Is this only a Cork phenomenon or are other parts of Ireland getting it too? Hope it lasts. I might even BBQ this evening!

Ok, so down to business. Unsurpisingly, its been productive here in my little patch!

Completed this week:

Drum roll please.......I finished my Cosmo bag!!! Woohoo!! I almost can't believe that it has left my WIP basket (having accumulated some serious fluff along the way, that navy fabric shows up every strand of thread making it not as practical as I would have thought!) and become an actually-very-nice finished bag. What do you think? It's made with the Memento midnight fabric from Amy Butler's Love range. The green contrast and the lining fabric are from my local fabric shop, I was sorry I used that green in the end as it was slightly heavier than the other fabrics and made the final sewing on the handles quite tricky.

 I do love the bag but there is no way that I would rate it as an "easy" pattern as it is in the "Style Stitches" book. A lot of the construction is very straightforward, but the handles and the curved band at the top are really not beginner level sewing in my opinion, and definitely the edge stitching around the insides of the handles at the end was quite tricky and I poked myself with pins a gazillion times. If I had tackled this a few years ago as a beginner I would never have managed it and I would have totally lost my sewing confidence I think! I didn't have a quite big enough button for the closure, but I think its ok and I like the effect of using the Memento fabric instead of the green for it.

 

I only did the inside pocket on one side as I ran out of the lining fabric. This is a big, roomy bag and I added some very stiff, cardboard like interfacing to the bottom to strengthen it a little more. I think I'll be using this when I'm out and about, its got good weight and structure and is really very pretty :-)

I also finished this little tag comforter once I got to do the hand embroidery:

In Progress:

I now have 2 quilt tops awaiting quilting - my Dresden from Lily's Quilt QAL

 and my It's a Hoot/Walk in the Woods for my goddaughter.

I really want to quilt the Its a Hoot using free motion quilting so need to get in some more practice in the next couple of weeks before I try it. I was going to do the Dresden in the circular quilting Lynne used on the original QAL block, but now I might FMQ it for practice instead. Still thinking about this one.



Started:

Remember a couple of weeks ago I won a giveaway for about half a Sherbet Pips layer cake, courtesy of the lovely Kristie? Well, I have been trying to decide what to do with it for a while now and finally made up my mind this morning. My 3yr old daughter E is insanely jealous of the quilt I'm making for my goddaughter! She keeps asking for her own and loves the picture of this "The Burbs" quilt from Material Obsession

(which I plan on doing later in the year), but that would be a detailed and time consuming one to do if I was to do it really nicely and do all the hand quilting and E is not a lady to keep waiting! So I got thinking, and realised that the Sherbet Pips has 3 of E's favourite things - swings, scooters and - mostly importantly - dogs. I showed her the fabric and she absolutely loved it.

 

This morning I cut the layer cake squares into 5" charms and I intend doing a simple pinwheels design. I will need to cut some more white charm squares to balance the colours but now that I've made up my mind I'm itching to get started piecing!


Still Stalled...

The stupid curtains are the major item still in my basket awaiting attention. Now that I've gotten a lot of progress on other stuff I am determined that I will have made progress on them by next Wednesday.


As always I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced and some other great blogs!