Pink Dogwood Baby Quilt

Remember this one?

I finished up the quilting on this last summer.  Then no one on planet earth gave birth to a girl.  So much for getting ahead of the game.  But someone has just bought it!  So I finished up the binding and got it all ready to go.

The quilting:

The finished quilt:

I had to do the old way of binding, which is great because it's a bit more durable.  But it means a good few hours of dedicated hand-sewing.  Glad it's done, and especially glad it's getting a home. 

Turquoise Lover

So many turquoise scraps, and no more baby quilts to use them on this year.  So what better plan than to make something else especially for a turquoise lover?  Especially one that just moved into her first home this year!

I didn't want to do anything too crazy, and I can sometimes tend to get a little weird when given complete freedom.  When the friend mentioned that's she's not only a turquoise lover, but adores it combined with red?  Well holy crap, it gave me an idea.


 

I cut out a bunch of starfish.  I just wasn't sure if I could figure out how to affix them to the table runner.  I am not proficient with applique.  But after causing a flaw on the quilt (accidentally sliced one of the blocks with my rotary cutter after it was pieced), I had no choice.  I tried to fix the slice with an invisible stitch, and it was NOT invisible.  So now one of the starfish is covering that up.  And I'm not sure I'd have had the courage to attempt it without being forced to desperately save the table runner top.

The applique adventure came after I had finished quilting it, and I'm glad of that.  It filled in the spaces around my design well.

It's a stencil I've had for more than a year, but never had a great place to use it until now.  Turns out the design is MUCH more amazing on the quilt than in theory!  So I was absurdly excited about that.

Here's the completed table runner on an actual table.

I would not be offended if you ignored my attempts to stage the perfect picture.  Some day I'll take a photography class.  But in the mean time, this runner is now enjoying the luxurious life with a new, loving owner.

Last Baby Quilt of 2013

This was pieced in just a few days.  I had started cutting for this quilt in January when I was having trouble being decisive about the Blue Stars quilt.  On the borders, I ran out of that particular cream, so I thought it would be fun to diagonally piece the corners.  Well, I don't usually do diagonally pieced blocks, so when I was trimming them down, I only trimmed one side after sewing them in.  So ALL of the corner border blocks are completely irregular!

I wanted to do all creams because I had seen someone do a subtle watercolor style quilt with only cream prints, and it was so beautiful.  So while I forwent the watercolor style, I still like the look of varied creams.  And the fairy frost green is something I've wanted to use forever.

Quilting this was a fun project.  I used an older stencil I have that I always fall back on.  But this time I realized when I use the stencil closely in rows, it creates a totally different look.

The big lesson I learned here is not to use the colored chalk on light fabrics.  The white always washes out.  And this is chalk specifically for cotton fabric.  It's supposed to wash out!  But it didn't.

Luckily, it faded enough that it just looks like I used a pale green thread.  Which I didn't -- it was white thread when I started this.

I'm slowly becoming more adept at binding in this way.  I truly hate cutting separate binding material, spending WAY more time than I like at the iron, then sewing carefully and pulling crazy maneuvers to close it off before having to flip it and hand-sew the other side.  I've been cutting the backing down to 1 extra inch on all sides and just turning it over the edges and sewing *one time*.  It takes no time at all compared to the traditional way.

This is the last one for a while.  But see, I was looking forward to my break in quilts.  Then the day after I mailed this one off, I started a new project!  It's a smaller project, a table runner with my favorite turquoise scraps.  But still...  I'm a quilter that can't sit still. 

Baby Quilt 2

As usual, I completely forgot to take pictures of the finished product, thanks to my irrational excitement at pulling it out of the dryer and finding it totally intact.  Luckily, the new owners kindly took some photos for me.

This is not a color combination I would have come up with on my own.  I know browns have been getting popular for nurseries over the years, but I was never much of a fan.  I was planning to use a nice bone muslin with the green and blue, but what I bought was too thin for me to work with easily, and it was driving me crazy.  In the end, the brown was sturdy, soft and contrasted enough to make the blue and green pop out.  I really dig the look. 

I ended up quilting a leaf border design on the sashing.  I was hoping to add some owl appliques, but it turns out it's much too soon in my skill level to attempt organic shapes.  This was a good quilt for me.  The quilting itself was very calming, and the piecing only took me a day or two of dedicated machine work.  The backing is solid brown, and I turned the edges to the front for the binding.  I've become very fond of that binding style.  It saves me so much time.  No extra cutting, folding, ironing and best of all, no hand-stitching around the back!  If only I could get my one sewing foot to cooperate -- it's open-toed, and tends to bunch the fold.

And with the new baby:

I still want to use the muslin.  Maybe for a whole-cloth quilt.  I like the look of it paired with a nice hand-quilted design.

The third baby quilt of the year has been pieced and basted already.  I have just started quilting it today.  I think it's going to take me about 3 weeks before it's done, unless I get inspired to add some touches.

Blue Stars

I finally finished piecing the blue baby quilt.  I get really giddy when I get to this point, because there's generally a lot of frustrations before I do.  But this one was easy.  Just time consuming.  I am so glad I finally gave in and started using a rotary cutter.

Probably the only quilt I've ever planned and pieced without changing my mind a hundred times.  I'm so pleased with the outcome, I actually started out this post with "look how amazing I am!"  Haha.  I'll get over it.  But maybe not until months after I've mailed it off to its new home.  Maybe years.  Come on, that's a damn fine quilt.

Hand-quilting this starting on Sunday or Monday.  Not sure if I need new thread or not.  Let's see, I've got pink, red, brown and lavender!  So, looks like I will have to make a quick stop at my favorite quilting shop in the world.  Hahahaha... quick stop.  Oh, I kill myself.