Sunday, February 7, 2010

little suburb baby quilt

little suburb quilt

As soon as I spotted this one and this one on flickr I knew i needed to make something similar, and fortunately my work supplies a nearly constant stream of new babies as recipients... This one is for a friend at work whose baby of unknown gender is due in June... so I'm a little ahead of myself here.

My favourite house

Now that I've finished this one I need to get going on a single girl quilt for a close friend whose baby is already 3 months old... its taken us the best part of a year to settle on a pattern, and I've now given up on letting my friend choose the fabrics, and will instead trust my own judgement on what she'll like!

Close up of tree

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Green tumbling blocks

Finally finished, a quilt i started intending to have it for winter, ready for the last half of summer - of course, as it was for me it kept getting pushed to the end of the list!

Bed

Tumbling blocks pattern, although there's not an awful lot of contrast between my light/medium/darks so not sure that the blocks really stand out. Machine pieced (y-seams arent really that bad when you get going, although admittedly are slower than standard piecing), and machine quilted. First quilt quilted with my new walking foot (thanks mum!) Of course now that I have a walking foot I'm horrified I didnt get one sooner, and keep thinking of all the tiny tucks in the quilting on the quilts I made for my grandmas which could have been avoided. Ah well.

Close up

I've used many of the same fabrics as my first green quilt, although this one has many more mid-green fabrics, so the overall tone is a little different. Bound in the same Katie Jump Rope print I used to bind the first green quilt. I am now completely converted from bias binding to straight grain binding. The trouble with having a background in garment sewing is it never even occurred to me that binding could be other than bias, until the overwhelming evidence of other quilters convinced me to try it! At least I've mastered the mitred corners, the first quilt has rounded corners because I simply couldnt figure out how to bind the squared corners (clearly I also couldnt figure out how to use the internet at that stage).

Quilts

The last few quilts I've been sewing binding right side first, pressing and pinning and then ditch stitching from the right side. I think this one will be the last one I do this way, I think I'll go back to sewing to wrong side and then edge stitching from the front. While the back will inevitably be imperfect, I wont miss sections the way I am with this method, and I'm over the going back and restitching sections thing. Also I dont mind the line of stitching the edge stitching gives the front.

I have at least three quilts planned in my mind, including another quilt for my bed with more of the same green fabrics. Unfortunately I'm waiting on a pattern and some fabrics to arrive in the post before I can begin any of them. (My shoulder is saying its ok with a few weeks off sewing, it hasnt yet forgiven me for quilting this one start to finish in one sitting).

Oh and I should say - I LOVE it, I'm really happy with how it turned out. It feels right, it feels like me. Although I think the first green quilt with all its flaws may still be my favourite :)

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Another grandma quilt

This quilt was a gift for one of my grandmas for christmas. Made primarily from a kit, with some additional borders added and some pillow shams created to make it into a double bed quilt.

PB220017