Baby quilts

I love making baby quilts to celebrate the start of a whole new life.  I've recently completed three of these quilts.  Three new babies yeah!

I started the first two quilts at retreat with Judy in Ballarat in August.  We stayed at a small two bedroom unit and it was perfect for what we needed it for.  It was a rather cold weekend mind you!  Judy and I went to all our favourite quilting shops and I bought this fabric for my first quilt at Spotlight.  This is for my son's friend's mum who was having her first daughter after having four boys.  I wanted something pretty and girly.

I made simple nine patches.  I unpicked lots of not so simple nine patches and I sewed blocks in the wrong places and unpicked rather a lot of sewing.  I would say I made this quilt five times ha ha but it turned out nicely in the end.

I actually finished the quilt top at retreat and was really happy I'd actually done something for a change!

I finished sewing the binding and the label at another retreat in September just in time to hear the baby had been born! Welcome to the world little Kelsey!

After finishing that top I started on the foundation paper pieced fox for the next quilt.

This is the third time I've pieced this little Sleepy Fox by 3rd Story Workshop.  It has some tricky parts but it does come together well in the end.

Here he is quilted.

I finished stitching the binding and label at the September retreat once baby Zachary was born and I knew his name.  This is my best friend from high school's sister's baby.  

I just put him sleeping on a simple background so he'd be the main focus.  I used wool batting in this quilt because the mum uses the quilts on the floor during tummy time.

During the August retreat Judy worked on these blocks.

Then she made use of the design floor to position these previously made triangles.

And finished the top!

She also left the rotary cutter open!  Bad bad Judy!  Never fear though, I am always on hand to capture your naughiness!

My daughter asked me to make the third baby quilt.  It's for her friend back in the UK who had a baby girl Ottilie!  I suggested a panel so that it would be a fairly quick quilt to make and thought she'd appreciate the Australian animal theme.

The panel was long and thin so I had to add to it.  I tried adding baby's name first but it wasn't grabbing me.

So I hand stitched her name instead.

I quilted this one with one of my favourite circle designs and I was very brave and stitched the binding on while I was quilting.  I think this is how I'm going to do all my quilts from now on!

My husband went back to the UK today so he is delivering this one.  I had to rush to finish the binding and the label!

I really enjoy making different kinds of quilts.  I wonder what I'll make next!

 

A year (and a quarter?) review

I've been busy sewing recently which is great news but I haven't been very good at documenting it!  I am a crap blogger that's for sure!  I can't post because I have nothing to post about and then I can't post because I have too much sewing!  I reread my whole blog which didn't take very long ha ha and I thought I'd let you know how my projects are going.

First up is my rainbow quilt which I posted about in July of last year.  It looks exactly the same now as it did then.  It was supposed to be a weekend project and took me months so why rush the quilting job?  And what colour thread will I use?  Argh!

My book of shame.  I haven't turned a single page of it since I posted about it.  This could be because I've misplaced it.  Ah well.  I can't help being messy!

Rugby Stars which I blogged about in July, December, August and September.  Well, the less said the better I think.

Erin's dancer picture.  Unfinished.  As in not even started.  However, it did give me chance to mull over the idea and after trying to paint with the textile stuff in the paint I've decided that pens might be the way to go.  Erin is no longer a dancer. Ha ha!

This Japanese dilly bag kind of looks the same as it did back in August last year but I did do a practice version to check it would work and it did.  But hey, that was August last year and I can't remember how I did it.  You can't rush a good job so they tell me.

So, what about the things I have done?  There are so many to choose we'll be here all day so I'll tell you about some of the quilts I've been quilting.

My new machine is a Grace Q'nique 21 and it runs on a Continuum II frame.  I took a big risk buying this frame because I wasn't sewing at the time and I was very worried that I was going to be wasting rather a lot of money on it.  But I took a chance because I was shocked at how much the prices had gone up in the few years since I'd started looking at them and didn't want to pay any more down the track.  Now that I've said that it's actually a reasonably priced set up when you compare it to other machines and I've found Grace to be a decent and helpful company.

So this little wall hanging was the second thing I quilted on it.  I started this at retreat many years ago when I didn't have a project to work on and found this as a kit in a quilt shop days before going. It's pretty and the quilting is pretty. 

Or at least the quilting is pretty when you get your tension right. Grr!

My husband keeps asking where the comma is after scraps.  I may have to embroider one!

Here I am hand sewing the binding.  I have probably finished sewing one side oops.  And now I realise I'll need to add a hanging sleeve!  Yikes, way too much work.  Next..!

This bow tie quilt is an interesting one.  My friend Debbie pieced the blocks and then was ill and sadly lost interest in sewing.  Judy sewed the blocks together and I quilted and bound it.  I found this hole during the quilting process and whipped it closed with a few hand stitches.

I offered to quilt this pink quilt for a charity. It turned out lovely but for some reason I didn't take a decent picture.

Oh and another charity quilt top that was a bit of a nightmare!  I had to make the backing wider so I started that first.  It turned out well considering I had to do lots of pattern matching in one of the strips.

Then I spread the quilt top out on the floor and realised I didn't have a hope of quilting it.  There was a 3 inch difference in the side borders!  Yikes!  The braid was beautifully hand stitched and it was probably lack of experience sewing borders that was it's downfall.  

Although my new dog, Wellington, quite liked it as is.

So I unpicked it, recut all the green fabric to the correct size and stitched it all back together again.

I actually used glue instead of pins to attach the sashings and borders.  It works much better for me with my dodgy hand but the glue has to be washed off afterwards!  Here it is (glue and all) on my frame being quilted with an all over leaf design. 

Ta da!  The ironic part is that after trimming the sashings and borders the quilt top was small enough to fit on the backing that I'd had to enlarge.  

And finally this quilt is Gail's Japanese jelly roll fabric quilt I quilted for her.  I basted this one to keep the fabric strips straight and it worked out well.  I should have enlarged the quilting design so that it's not so dense only because it took so long and used up so much thread!  But it looks lovely and Gail was pleased.  

I've got a baby quilt to finish soon and then I'll show you the three I've just completed.  Baby quilts are my favourite I think.  All that newborn love awwww!

A finish at last!

 Phew!  It's been a while since I posted which is kind of funny seeing as I had planned on posting twice a week originally ha ha!  And it's been a long while since I had a finish! Many years ago I went to Spotlight and hidden away in a corner was a stash of packets of these quilt kits. They'd obviously been around a while as the packaging was torn and they'd been reduced in price several times.  I don't believe I'd ever bought a kit at that point and thought I'd give it a try.  Now I wish I'd bought the whole pile of them but never mind. The kit included the fabric for the top and the binding plus an acrylic Dresden template.

I made the top fairly soon after I bought the kit and basted it because I decided that I wanted to hand quilt it with a cross hatch design using embroidery floss.  This, of course, explains why this is such an old UFO.  Hand quilting ha ha ha ha ha!  In what lifetime was I ever going to do that?!

Years passed and I bought a quilting frame and I searched my studio for a project worthy of being the first to do on the frame.  I have plenty of tops to choose from.  I had lots without batting, others without backing and then some without the right thread.  This is starting to sound like Goldilocks and the three bears!  But this one was just right.  Ha ha!  I unpicked the basting stitches and did a bit of work to get it ready for the frame and then I thought I'd be really clever and design my own digital quilting pattern for the Dresden blades.  The plan was to do some fancy design in the blade and something else in the circle and then an all over circle design over the rest of it with a repeat of the design in the Dresden centre randomly placed within a few of the background circles.  It made complete sense to me!

This is the design I came up with for the blades.  I was so pleased with myself when after watching a billion videos and with much trial, error and swearing I managed to draw it in pattern cad.

Then I was stumped because I couldn't place my design in the right position.  I almost threw in the towel but I came up with this template to help me position each design on the blade using four points.  

Ta da! It worked!  Well, kind of.  After doing all that work I realised that it was going to take forever to position then sew each blade and for each blade I'd have threads to bury which I'd happily do if the design didn't fade into my fabric!  It was definitely not worth the effort! So I unpicked it and did an edge to edge!

My least favourite part.  Hand sewing the binding.  

And finally after all that chatter here is the finished quilt!  I did crop it to remove my feet from the picture but the original uploaded so I'm going to leave it as it tickles me!

Here's a shot of my quilted bubbles.  It wasn't quite what I expected but it worked out in the end.

So what's next I wonder?

Ballarat retreat

 Judy, Kate and I went to Ballarat for the weekend for our quilters retreat.  We stayed at a lovely characterful Airbnb house with three bedrooms, plenty of comfy seating and a dining table we could sew at.  There was a hatch between the kitchen and the dining area and we were able to use that for our cutting mats.

I went with Judy and we met up with Kate at Millrose Quilting & Gallery where Judy was delighted to find some shot cotton fabric remnants for sale.  We paused for a hot chocolate and a cake and to take a picture to show Kay what she was missing out on!  All retreat pictures were taken by Judy.

We went an interesting way to get to Gail's Patchwork Emporium as Google decided we needed to go the scenic route which was very exciting!  Gail's as always was chock-a-block with fabrics and Judy scored some $10 a metre fabrics to make into backings.  

I wanted some Morris & Co Kelmscott fabric by Free Spirit for table mats but decided in the end that I'd need too much if I was going to fussy cut and then by the time I'd hidden them underneath the plates they'd be a very expensive purchase.  But the fabric is so lovely!

 

We then stopped off at Beechworth bakery for a delicious pie and some fresh cream cakes. I am obviously delighted with my cake that I'll be saving for afternoon tea.  Kate is more laid back because she has eaten her cake already!

 

After lunch we went to Eureka Patchwork and Elisabeth has done an excellent job of selling a whole heap of fabric on online de-stash sites which was brilliant for her.  Judy picked up a few bits and pieces but Kate and I just had a look this time.

We arrived at the Airbnb and set up our machines etc.  I'm fairly sure the first bottle of wine was opened soon after!  

Judy is making the Mistletoe Quilt by ZenChic and she prepped all her blocks ready to blanket stitch the appliqué shapes.  There were rather a lot of them!

Kate swore she wouldn't be doing any more work on the clamshells on her Oakhampton Quilt and then swore because she did some!

I started making a Happy Birthday bunting banner using scraps of fabric.  This project has been on my to do list for years and I thought it would be the perfect easy thing to do at retreat.  Before retreat I stumbled across a video showing how to pull the points out when you turn your fabric through and I was so excited to try it but I got confused and spat the dummy so used my trusty pointy stick to prod them into place instead.

The weather was gorgeous so I went outside in my pyjamas for a bit of sun.

Ta da!  I finished my bunting!

And it did me in!

We had a lovely weekend and can't wait to go again!  When I arrived home I strung my bunting up and hated it!  The white bias binding string was messy and see through and it just looked awful because where I was hanging it you can see the back of the bunting. So I unpicked it!

I redid it using the dark grey fabric I'd used on the letters and it turned out much better!  The banner had it's first showing for my son Jâc's 23rd birthday.

I didn't want to throw the scraps of fabric that I'd cut out of the inverted points of my bunting so I made a stillborn baby quilt.  Ooh it looks very wobbly in this picture!  I'll make up a bit of binding then hide it away in a box until I can get around to quilting it.

Christmas card wall hangings

My mother in law in the UK started making us homemade Christmas cards five years ago.  She personalises them with photos I've randomly sent her throughout the year.  You can never be certain which ones she'll choose!  I didn't want the cards sitting in the cupboard so I've been turning them into simple wall hangings and now we get to enjoy them every Christmas.

Here's one of the cards.  My husband and I are in the kangaroos pouch.  It's a picture of us eating ice-cream!

 

I pull it all apart and trim to a useable size.  This one was a bit tricky because my MIL trimmed the corners but they ended up inside my seam allowance so it worked out.  I added a two inch border, some hanging tabs and joined it to another card.

Here it is with this year's card.  My husband and I hanging on the tree with our grandchildren!  I need to buy another hanger some time.

Here's the one I made before.  Our first card was the caravan one because we'd recently bought a van and were just starting out on our camping adventures. I think I should have pressed the hanging before taking the picture!  

Hopefully we'll get many more of these lovely pieces of artwork/memories.